


Trust

by MagpieTales



Series: Long Haul Saga [3]
Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:05:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieTales/pseuds/MagpieTales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Centuries of never trusting anyone had kept Eric Northman undead. So why were his instincts telling him to trust some-one he had just met? Especially a fairy, even if she was only half-fae.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Set in the wonderful world created by Charlaine Harris. All credit to her for imagining it and the characters I play with.
> 
> This set after Turbulence. A reminder of where we are in the main story: after three years in Oklahoma, Eric is free and Freyda is dead. Sookie and Sam’s marriage is on the rocks, partly due to the effects of the fairy wish, effects that Sookie has left the country to remove.
> 
> Trust is an Eric and OC Rory short that takes place during Sookie's six month absence. It’s different in tone to the main stories, as if the characters stepped out of that world for a moment to reflect. Which is exactly what Eric and Rory are doing, stepping out of their lives to see, really see, each other.
> 
> Warnings: contains some discussion of rape, violence, and forced marriage.

**One January Night near Shreveport:**

* * *

"It’s a terrible thing to be alone – yes it is – it is – but don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath – as terrible as you like – but a mask." - _Katherine Mansfield._

* * *

  
Eric landed silently on the empty road.

He had flown over the lake and then used the directions he’d been given to identify this spot from the sky. This particular road, a narrow branch of the network that veined these woods, was a seldom used dead-end that curled back towards the lake.

He was told to proceed on foot from this point, where the blacktop ended.

A rough driveway, not much more than a dirt track, led off into the trees. It looked neglected, thick tufts of grass and weeds sprouting between its fading tire tracks. The mailbox beside it was rusty.

Eric frowned. He wasn’t sure he was in the right place. He gave the mailbox a cursory glance, checking for a house number or a name, but it had neither. Then he gave it a longer look. Under the discoloured paint, it was a sturdy structure of cast-iron, decorated with delicately worked vines and flowers.

Eric smiled and strode confidently down the track.

The first bend gave him a glimpse of a dilapidated house through the trees. The dwelling was dark and looked abandoned, its windows broken and rotten holes in the clapboards, but Eric didn’t hesitate.

At the next bend, an ornate but rusty pair of iron gates stood open, hanging crookedly on either side of the track. Eric shivered as he passed between them. His smile returned as his surroundings melted and reformed.

The illusion was gone.

The track was suddenly clear of weeds, well-kept and freshly gravelled. A sturdy rambling house nestled in the trees ahead. Its walls were stone and it had a pristine slate roof. All of the windows were intact and several glowed with a warm yellow light. Eric blurred to the front steps.

The fae-demon hybrid who called herself Rory Kingfisher opened the door as he reached it. Barefoot and wearing simple blue dress, she was dressed lightly for the cold night.

Smiling at him, she invited Eric inside.

Eric followed her into the house, examining his surroundings curiously. In the lobby a jumbled pile of shoes gathered under the stairs, and coats and scarves threatened to tumble from the overfull coat rack. He caught a glimpse of a library stuffed with overflowing bookcases and from the interesting smells of cooking and herbs a stone-tiled passageway led back to the kitchen. Through another door, he saw a formal dining room complete with a glittering chandelier and bold red and black wallpaper.

It was … eclectic, a jumble of styles and colours. If he was brutally honest, as was his habit, he would say it was clean, but chaotic and cluttered. He found the lack of order didn’t surprise him; it fitted with what he knew of the impetuous redhead from their short acquaintance.

Rory had been the one to suggest they meet to talk and to deepen their knowledge of each other. Something that was in his interests given he'd thanked her and she could hold that debt over him as long as she wanted. Even without that incentive, he might have agreed out of pure curiosity. He was intrigued by the healer who’d helped him so freely, above and beyond what was strictly necessary.

It wasn’t just about what he owed her, though.

There was something about her that called to him.

She led him to a large comfortable sitting room at the back of the house, decorated in cheerful shades of yellow. She walked straight through it, past the well-stuffed chairs and an oak coffee table scattered with piles of papers, newspapers and books. He glanced at the titles. Mostly medical. He assumed she was brushing up on the advances humans had made in her field.

Rory stopped in front of a closed pair of glass-panelled doors. With her hands resting on the handles, she grinned mischievously over her shoulder at him.

“This room would be best I think. It’s warded for privacy.” She waited for him to get closer and then threw the doors open with a flourish.

It was dark beyond the doorway, but Eric could see well in the dark and what he saw was a glass roof, stone paths and a profusion of greenery. He quirked an eyebrow. “A hothouse. Is my blood too cold for y–?”

He broke off, inhaling the wonderful fragrance sharply. His eyes fluttered closed briefly in pleasure.

Rory smiled gleefully at his reaction. “Welcome to my indoor garden, Eric.”

She disappeared through the doors into the darkness, threading her way between the plants that crowded the spacious glasshouse, heading towards a paved area where a pair of couches and a low table waited.

Eric didn’t follow her directly. He meandered through the plants, identifying the flowers filling the air with their scent. Evening primrose, Angel’s trumpet and jasmine, all old favourites that had scented his nights over the centuries. He stopped by the honeysuckle to inhale greedily, disturbing the moths feeding on it. Wondering how they got in, he glanced up to find a skylight open to the night sky.

He made his way over to his hostess, stopping again near the couches, next to a waist-high bush covered in tiny pale flowers. It had a delicate, light fragrance. He inhaled, trying to place it, and frowned at it. “I don’t know this one.”

Rory had lit three large beeswax candles and was sitting on one of the couches watching him with amusement. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s fae. Very rare. A gift from an old friend.”

“Ah.” He took the other couch and sat in the centre of it, legs spread and arms draped across the back; a relaxed posture that oozed power and dominance. Rory curled her legs under her like a cat relaxing: inoffensive, unthreatening, and yet poised to pounce in an instant.

“A hobby?” Eric asked, gesturing to their surroundings.

She nodded. “I am something of a collector. The specimens here are either useful to my work or simply exotic and beautiful. This is perfect for them. And me. All fae have an affinity with nature and this is where I recharge. It's my sanctuary.”

He cocked his head. “You are a creature of the day. Yet you have many night flowering plants.”

“True. But I keep odd hours. And I have one thing in common with you creatures of the night.” He raised an eyebrow. She smiled. “Your kind relies heavily on scent. I think a flower without scent is like a meal without flavour, don't you agree?”

His mouth twitched at her witty reply and its allusion to her own absence of scent and her reluctance to be bitten. “So knowing this about my kind, you chose this room full of scents released in the hours of darkness to enthral me.”

She shook her head and smiled. “To show we share the same pleasures. That we aren't so far–”

They both looked up at a sharp noise, too highly pitched for human ears. Rory grinned widely and lifted herself up onto her knees, raising one arm and making a quiet clicking noise in her throat that earned her a quizzical look from her companion.

A dark shape, fast and flickering in the dim light, swooped down and landed awkwardly against her outstretch arm, wrapping around her wrist like a piece of dark leather. She gently cradled it to her chest and lowered herself back down to the couch. She spoke a few words in a liquid lilting tongue that Eric knew to be some dialect of fae before switching to whispered English. “There, little one. There are plenty of moths for you tonight.”

Eric leaned forward, fascinated as he watched her stroke the creature. She shot Eric a glance, and seeing his interest slowly held out her arm towards him. Just as slowly, he stretched out to meet it with a single finger that dwarfed the delicate animal. He caressed it lightly, finding its fur soft and velvety.

After a minute, the bat shifted a little and bared its sharp teeth.

Eric grinned. “I know that look. He is hungry.”

Rory grinned too, baring her own teeth like a feral cat. “One hunter knows another.” She said something quick and light in the fae tongue, and threw up her arm to launch the bat back into the air. “Eat well this night, my friend.”

She gestured at the goblet in front of Eric as she reached to pick up her glass. “A toast. To trust.”

“To trust.” They both drank, the red wine staining her lips darkly and the fresh blood clinging to his teeth. He licked his lips clean before he spoke.

It was a pleasant conversation, both parties finding common ground. They talked of the world, the human world. Progress: how much had changed since she was last in this realm. Technology: how useful it was, how frustratingly limited. They joked a little, gossiped a little about the players in their world, the supernatural one that humans barely saw. They touched soberly on recent events, the politics of their own kinds that swirled around their lives.

That was all they discussed before they parted amicably.

Nothing personal. Not that first night.

...

**One February night near Shreveport:**

* * *

  _"_ Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. _" **–** Oscar Wilde_

* * *

The second time they met the conversation in the hothouse flowed more freely, despite an inauspicious start.

Eric arrived tense and angry, but not at her. She was weary, tired from the demands of her vocation and frustrated by the adjustments she had to make to live in the human world again.

They did not discuss their problems.

Instead, in that warm pool of candlelight, night blooms silently scenting the darkness around them, Rory asked Eric how much of this western continent he had visited. The Americas were new to her and she listened to him attentively. Then he asked her which places she had known in the Old World, remembering she had been in Bohemia at some point.

She, like most fae, had wandered the wild places, away from centres of human population. He, like most vampires, fed off them, literally. But they shared stories of the places they had in common, and gradually, naturally, like a river meandering towards the ocean and deeper waters, they came to share more.

“…across the shoulder, deep enough that I could not heal in time for the summer. I was forced to stay behind with the women and old men, angry to miss the raiding.”

She laughed. “Did they have you wash clothes and clean and cook?”

His eyes crinkled in amusement, matching his tone. “A chief’s son? Oh no, not even Aude could humble me into that. But she did put an end to my foul mood within a week.”

Rory took the bait. “How? How was the might warrior humbled?”

“She told me if I didn’t do something about my unruly sons she would teach them to wield a sword herself and have them gut me in my sleep,” he said with relish, grinning at the memory.

“Sons? How many?”

His eyes were far away then and she held her breath until he spoke. “Two. They were seven and six summers that year. Old enough to learn, eager to fight. They were excited. Boisterous. I had to be stern with them.” He smiled to himself. “Especially when their sister demanded to learn too. I had to remind my sons that our people were proud of their strong women, women who could take up a sword and defend themselves.”

No twitch or tension around his eyes, nothing on his face betrayed more than faint amusement, but Rory’s demon blood had given her the ability to detect emotions and she sensed the flicker of pain from him when he mentioned his daughter. She held herself still for a long moment. Then she asked softly, “What was her name?”

“Inga,” he answered, his voice deepening. He smiled slightly, his eyes dark and distant, seeing memories many centuries old. “The time with my children that summer was an unexpected gift. Especially with Inga. Even at four she was fierce, determined. She took such joy in everything around her. She was bold, adventurous. I will never forget her spirit, but her face…” He trailed off and then added quietly, “Perhaps that is a blessing.”

After a moment he glanced at Rory, all signs of loss hidden behind a mask of indifference.

Rory was staring into her half-drained glass, swirling the dark wine slowly. After a pause, she raised her face and he was startled to see the glitter of a tear on her cheek. He wasn’t fond of tears, even ones he couldn’t smell, and he didn't want her pity for what Ocella took from him. He tensed, but before he could react further, she gathered her composure and asked, “Have you ever been to the Emerald Isle, to Kerry in the south?”

He shook his head, confused by her sudden change of tack.

“It is a beautiful region. It was sparsely populated when I was born there in the last decade of the fifteenth century. I spent my childhood hidden away in its mountains, with my mother Aideen.”

“Hidden?”

“Yes. In a secluded valley. Neither my father's people nor my mother's approved of their union.”

“Ah.”

She made as if to shoo a fly. “Neither of them could be dissuaded by mere disapproval. They were far too deeply in love. But they felt it prudent not to flaunt my existence while I was still a child. My mother could not enter the dae realm, but Memnon, my father, had … business there that kept him away for months at a time. So Aideen chose to settle us out of harm's way, off the beaten path. It was a mostly solitary existence, but I didn't suffer for it. It was idyllic. I loved the mountains, the wildness there. I spent much of my childhood roaming the hills making friends of the foxes and the birds.”

“You have a gift with animals.”

“Yes. It is common in my mother’s line; she is of the Crannruadh clan.”

“Cran-roo-agh.” He stumbled to replicate the Gaelic, and hazarded a guess at its meaning. “Red … tree?”

She nodded, gesturing to her long red hair glinting in the candlelight. “The same as my mother. Red hair is also common in our clan. We are Talamh fae.”

“Tah-lav?” he repeated questioningly.

“We are not fae of the sky or the water, but of the solid ground. Talamh means land.” She added lightly, “Or dirt as the sky fae would have it.”

Eric’s lip curled as he remembered Niall’s attitude to her. She shrugged dismissively.

Not wanting to get side-tracked into a discussion of fae superiority complexes and inter-clan relationships he asked, “How did you avoid discovery by humans?”

“We stuck to dealing with a few locals, ones who understood our ways, the ways of the ‘fair folk’ as they called us. My mother's skills as an herbalist won us enough respect for them to trade goods with us and protect us as best they could. And of course my mother used a little fae glamour to blind the curious to what we were. The place was a backwater, we weren’t troubled.” She sighed wistfully. “I was very happy there. The best times were when my father returned to us. He never failed to bring me some trinket or gift. I was rather spoilt.” She side-eyed Eric. “I bet Inga was the same.”

“Yes. Once I bought her back a silver comb worth more than anything I’d ever given my wife. Aude was furious with me for that.”

Rory laughed. It was an easy, carefree sound. Eric liked the light it brought to her eyes and found himself grinning at her.

She smiled back. “Your daughter had that advantage at least: a wise mother. Aideen spoilt me just as much as Memnon did.” A shadow passed across her face with his name.

Eric’s grin faded. She looked down at her lap, but he’d seen the way her eyes shone.

She swallowed and said quietly, “Memnon died three years ago. We were close.” She wiped away a tear. “I miss my father deeply. Hearing you talk of Inga …”

“Ah. Fresh wounds are easily torn open.” Eric’s knot of offended pride relaxed. She hadn’t pitied him, his loss merely evoked hers. He imagined Inga's grief when he never returned and felt a rush of sympathy for the healer. He didn’t suppress it as he usually did, knowing it would be more eloquent than words.

Rory felt it as he'd intended and her green eyes softened with gratitude. “Thank you,” she said softly, stretching over to rest her hand briefly on his arm. After a moment, she continued. “Memnon’s death is partly why I have returned to the human realm: I couldn’t rely on my eldest half-brother for protection in Dae. Tarok and I have never been close. His younger brother Erdal is willing but lacks sufficient influence. I am lucky the fae are at peace and it is relatively safe for me here again.”

Eric's curiosity spiked. “Relatively?”

“There is a reason I don’t use my real name in this realm. The fae do not forget blood feuds.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you need a few fae removing…” He licked his lips playfully.

She shook her head with a smirk. “No, thank you. And don’t think to cancel out your debt that way. You’d have far too much fun.”

He shrugged, his eyes twinkling. “Worth a try. Are you in the habit of starting blood feuds? Not that I am averse to troublesome females, but…”

“You want to know how much trouble I could get you in.”

He nodded, smirking at the innuendo.

Rory rolled her eyes at him playfully, and then became serious. “It is my blood they would spill. It will not affect you.”

Eric found he did not like the idea she might be killed before he’d worked her out. He offered her seriousness in return. “Do you need protection?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Why would you offer? Your debt dies with me. You would be free of it. I might start thinking you don't want rid of me if you're not careful, Mr Northman.”

He grinned, playing along. “Ah, but a fae healer willing to work on vampire is a most valuable asset, Miss Kingfisher. I would hate to lose my connection to you.”

“Yes, I'm sure it is adding to your notoriety amongst your kind.”

“And the story behind your own notoriety?” He asked it lightly, not really expecting her to answer but unable to resist the question.

She glanced towards the moon. “I'm afraid that is a story for another night. A toast?” She raised her glass and he accepted, mirroring her actions with his goblet of blood. “To family lost but still in our hearts.”

For a blink she thought Eric might refuse the toast, but instead his eyes darkened and he whispered something in Norse and then more strongly in English, “To Inga.”

“To Memnon.”

They drank together, both honouring a treasured father-daughter bond.

...

**One March night near Shreveport:**

* * *

"Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend." - _Oliver Wendell Holmes Snr._ _  
_

* * *

At their third meeting, Rory opened the door with a scowl on her face and a cell phone at her ear. She smiled briefly and waved Eric through as she gave curt yes and no answers to whoever was invoking her displeasure long distance.

In the cheerful yellow lounge Eric spotted a tray balanced somewhat precariously on a stack of papers on the coffee table – a tray that held a bottle of wine, a carafe of blood and the familiar glass and goblet. The phone call had clearly interrupted Rory’s preparations. Without a thought he picked up the tray, took it out to the hothouse and set things out on the table how she usually arranged them. The room was unusually warm and he realised the skylight was still shut. He looked around for a mechanism to open it, shrugged, and flew up to the glass roof. The latch was simple. He hovered there for a minute, scenting the cool air and listening for their friend the bat.

He was just returning to the ground when Rory came in.

“Oh. Thanks Eric,” she said, gesturing at the drinks as she took her usual seat. She stretched and rubbed her face, and instead of curling up in that feline way of hers she slumped inelegantly back against couch, thumping the cushions behind her irritably.

Eric joined her. He didn’t take up his usual confident posture either, startling her by kicking off his shoes and sprawling on his back across the other couch. “Problems?” he asked.

“A stubborn patient. One I don’t care for.”

“Ludwig couldn’t deal with it?”

She snorted. “She likes him even less – we actually drew lots for the sod. Guess whose luck ran out?” Eric chuckled and Rory gave him a longer look. “Not yours. You look like the cat that caught a whole family of mice.”

He smirked. “No, just one big fat snake.”

“The danger is over then?”

He shrugged awkwardly in his prone position. “When is it ever over? But I think we’ll have a quiet spell.” He gave her a once over and noticed how tired she really was. He sat up abruptly, poured their drinks and handed the glass of wine to her.

She gulped half of it down and groaned. “I needed that.”

He sipped his blood. “If you are too tired …”

She waved him quiet. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

He chuckled. “Only in the day.”

She frowned and then laughed when she realised what she’d said. “Sorry.”

“Think nothing of it. If you insist on proceeding with tonight’s instalment of our little trust building endeavour, I have a proposal.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Go on.”

A challenge sparked in his blue eyes. “We agree to answer each other’s questions.”

She tilted her head, curious. “Are you sure you want to risk that? I could ask you anything.”

“Perhaps I trust you enough to take a chance, Sorcha. Besides, I’m on a winning streak.”

His good mood was infectious and Rory smiled widely, pleased to hear her real name. With amusement bubbling under her words, she gloated, “You can’t find out anything about me and your curiosity is killing you.”

He rolled his eyes at her, pretending to be annoyed that she could sense his feelings with her empathy. Let her think she had an edge, he thought. Her heartbeat, her breathing, the dilation of her pupils, her movements – he had long centuries of practise reading those. Mostly in humans, but her reactions were similar enough. “I admit it,” he said. “I’m curious. So will you agree?”

“I suppose you’ll go first?”

“It _was_ my idea.”

She shook her head, amused. “Okay, shoot.”

He grinned and said deliberately, “Tell me your history with the Pythoness.”

There was a flicker of something in her green eyes, squashed quickly, but Eric was watchful enough to catch it. She covered it with a smile. “That's your first question?”

“Yes,” he said simply. Then because of that flicker he gave her an out. “If you are willing to answer it.”

She paused for a second, but she didn’t disappoint him. “I’m willing, but that’s a long story. You might not get another question answered tonight.”

He shrugged. “Then perhaps you will allow me additional questions during your tale.”

“I think that’s fair. Very well.” She settled back and began with the practised relish of a keen story-teller. “It all started when I was kidnapped.”

After a dramatic pause, she continued. “It was 1807 and I was living in the mountains near Budapest, north of the Danube, with a group of part-fae, elves and various other nature spirits. It was my habit at the time to gather herbs in the forest alone, to guard my sources. Some herbs must be cut at a particular time of day, or in a certain way. On this fateful occasion I had been gathering dove's foot and milkwort at twilight. With a silver sickle.”

Eric’s eyes glinted with interest. “Useful against vampire.”

Rory smiled slowly. “It would have been. But it wasn’t vampires who appeared suddenly in the half-light that evening, surrounding me amongst the trees, far from any assistance.”

“Fae?”

She said sternly, “Interrupting constantly spoils the flow of the story.”

He held up his hands in capitulation, and sat back, wondering fleetingly if the myth was true: that certain fae could weave stories so compelling the listener became trapped in them. He dismissed the thought as fanciful and concentrated on her as she began again.

“Good. So, three fae appeared. All male. Before I was overwhelmed I recognised only one, Nolan, a water fae, distant cousin to Neave and Lochlan. He was bleeding out as I was subdued, my sickle buried in his thigh.” She flashed that feral grin at Eric and he grinned back, fangs down.

“I lost consciousness. When I woke, I lay still, assessing my situation. I sensed two fae nearby with my empathy. They were on edge. I was bound in iron so I couldn’t leave the fae way, and blinded by sacking over my face. I was gagged too, so I couldn’t curse my captors with magic. The air was cold and smelt strongly of pine. I felt around with my hands carefully and found the ground was strewn with pine-cones and needles. The forest near Budapest where I was taken was oak and beech so I knew I’d been transported some distance.

“Once they realised I was awake, Nolan had me dragged upright and punched me hard, in the belly, as revenge for his leg. Gasping for breath and concerned by the fury I sensed in him, I heard a low whistle off in the forest. Instantly both fae were fully alert, even as the third popped to us. None of them spoke.” Rory paused and Eric shifted forward minutely, caught up in her tale despite himself.

“A few seconds later, three vampires arrived and fanned out opposite Nolan and his fae. I could tell what they were from their speed and the thrill of fear that ran through the fae gripping my arms to hold me upright. There was a short exchange. Ignoring my own fear as best I could, I concentrated on reading the emotions of the two leaders, attempting to discover what was happening.”

Eric was watching her face. If Rory was weaving an enchantment, she was caught in her own telling, her eyes dilating with remembered panic. But even blind, and bound, and helpless, she’d kept a cool head and used her empathy. Eric grunted quietly in admiration, but didn’t interrupt.

“Nolan spoke first, full of impatience and tension, saying in German: ‘You have the payment?’ Something hit the ground in front of his feet with a heavy jangling thud. One of the vampires, the one in the centre, replied in heavily accented German. ‘If she is not the one, you will regret it. For many nights.’ He was serious, excited and also strangely repulsed. Suddenly I was thrust forward roughly, sprawling onto the ground between the two groups as Nolan sneered: ‘She’s all yours.’ One of the other fae darted forward to snatch up the payment and all three popped away, leaving me alone and defenceless.

“Cold hands lifted me to my feet and the sacking was removed. Blinking, I took in the scene before me. It was night, of course, and thick pine trees surrounded us, but enough moonlight filtered through them to reveal the vampire in front of me. He was dark-haired and heavyset. The other two – females, one blonde, one redhead –were armed with crossbows loaded with iron bolts, held loosely and pointed at the ground.

“To kill Nolan and his fae if they double-crossed them,” Eric said before he could stop himself.

“Yes. Naturally there was no trust between the two groups. Once Nolan and his accomplices disappeared, the vampires had relaxed a little, but they were still wary. Of me, I assumed. The male, their leader, touched my hair as he said something to the others in a language I didn't recognise. I discovered later it was Romanian. The blonde smiled, gesturing between me and the other female as she made a quick reply in the same burbling tongue. The male laughed, barking a short reply. The redhead snarled in annoyance, but I sensed her amusement. I presumed the leader had made a joke about our shared hair colour.

“Then the male spoke to me, asking me in broken German if I understood him. I nodded cautiously. He asked, ‘You are a healer?’ I nodded, hope welling up that I hadn’t been sold as a tasty meal – which would have been disastrous when they found out I was not at all as delicious as they expected. ‘You healed one of us, Leopold, over forty years ago?’ I nodded again. He smiled, and felt satisfaction. I realised I had been kidnapped because they wanted me specifically, and I began furiously plotting ways to exploit that.”

Eric nodded his approval, but bit back his comment this time.

“He asked if I could repress my scent for another hour. When I confirmed I could, he apologised that the chains and the gag would have to stay. Moving slowly he took me into his arms, slinging my bound wrists over his head. I had never been so vulnerable, so close to a vampire. His fangs ran out, shocking me. The scent from the other fae had excited him and I feared for my life, but he did not bite. Instead he stared straight ahead and took off at full speed, running south through the forest, his women following.”

Rory paused and then said with an amused look, “Ask or I fear you will explode.”

Eric fired off questions rapidly. “How did the fae know where to find you if you gathered herbs in secret? Where was this exchange with vampires made? Who was the vampire leader and what did he want with you? Did he have history with this Nolan? Why did Nolan betray you to him?”

She smirked. “That was Vlad’s first question once we were safely away: why would Nolan hand one of his own race over to vampires?”

Eric’s eyes widened comically. Rory could almost see a series of light bulbs flickering on behind them: a vampire called Vlad, with dark hair, speaking Romanian, accompanied by female vampires …

She laughed wildly as she felt his rising excitement. “No, not that Vlad,” she managed to choke out.

Eric frowned at her reaction, then narrowed his eyes and bit out one word. “Pam.”

Rory covered her mouth and nodded. Once she was calm she admitted, “She may have mentioned your bromance with the dark prince of Wallachia, yes.”

Eric growled out some terse Norse.

Still smiling Rory carried on. “To answer your questions. The pine forest was somewhere in the Carpathians, in Romania. I do not believe Stefan – the women did call him Vlad to tease him about the resemblance, but Stefan was his real name – had met Nolan before. Later Stefan told me he had let it be known to the local weres that he was willing to pay handsomely for a red-headed healer renowned amongst fae for healing a vampire, a fae woman he had a grudge against but wanted delivered intact. Nolan was in the area and heard this, contacting Stefan through the wolves to arrange an exchange.”

“How did Nolan find you?”

“That was my own doing. I had been wandering Europe skipping from fae enclave to enclave for almost a century when our paths crossed. At first no fae would hire me as a healer – the usual fae snobbery and obsession with lineage – so I was frustrated, unable to develop my talent. I occupied myself making herbal remedies for humans, as healing them magically was frowned on lest they discover us.” Her face clouded. “At any rate I was not comfortable around full fae and kept myself apart from my mother’s kind initially. It was a lonely existence.”

She shook her head to forestall the question on his lips. Eric was dissatisfied, but let it drop. He would come back to her uneasy relationship with the fae another time.

“After several decades of such wandering, a prominent water fae living in Bohemia approached me for help in 1762. He needed a healer who could be around hungry vampires with some degree of safety. That was the first time I had any real contact with the undead. Healing Leopold and his guards gave me some status amongst the fae. Some began to accept me, as a healer anyway. Pleased, I built on my successes and developed my gift. Forty-five years later, my reputation as a healer had spread far enough for Nolan to track me down from Stefan’s description and I encountered vampires for a second time.”

“Ah. The price of fame.”

“Yes.” Her smile faded. “And treachery. I was betrayed by an elf woman I knew, who lived in the enclave near Budapest. Nolan paid her well to find out where and when he could catch me alone.”

Eric pursed his lips thoughtfully and then asked, “If you had so little contact with my kind, this vampire cannot have had a grudge against you, unless Leopold was his enemy. What did Stefan want with you?”

“I'm coming to that. During that first hour, I was very afraid of Stefan and his women. Afraid I would be killed. Eaten. Or worse. When we stopped our headlong rush south, Stefan set me down and said: 'You will not be harmed. You have my word. Do you know why you are here?' I shook my head, still gagged. 'A powerful vampire has need of your healing talent to avert a war. I am charged with delivering you before time runs out. We must travel quickly, without rest. If you resist I will use force and the journey will be … unpleasant for both of us.' I could sense no duplicity, only wariness in him. I nodded cautiously, planning to co-operate until I had a chance to escape. He pulled out a knife and cut the gag before I could flinch. The redhead handed him a flask and he held it to my lips so I could drink my fill of water.

“I thanked him. Then he asked why Nolan had been so eager to sell me out to vampires. He was disgusted again, with Nolan I realised. I shrugged, saying I was only half-fae, with no family in Europe to protect me. Not the full truth of course, but enough for Stefan to accept. And it was a half-truth that came easily.”

“Why was that?”

Rory shifted, looked down and for a moment Eric thought she would brush off this question too. She met his eyes again and answered softly, “I had been in Dae for a long time before this period. When I returned in the early seventeen hundreds, only a handful of older fae in this realm knew of me, my history and my origins. Most of them, the few who might have recognised me for who I was, believed I remained in the demon realm with my father.”

Eric could see she was distressed. He had an idea why. He asked her gently, “Why did your father take you to his realm? You said your mother could not go there.”

Rory’s eyes filled with tears. She let them fall as she spoke. “My mother was killed in 1589, in Ireland, during an uprising in Kerry against the English. She had been helping the locals, the starving, the sick, and she was caught in one of their skirmishes, killed with an iron blade. Memnon was devastated. They had a scant century together when he anticipated many. He took me into Dae with him and in our shared grief we became very close.”

Eric allowed her to feel his sympathy and waited silently for her to compose herself. She gave him a soft smile before she continued.

“When I returned to this world, I kept my true identity secret. Sorcha had baggage and she was far too exceptional for it not to follow her. I am the only one of my kind, the only fae-demon hybrid. Among the fae and their allies, I used Rory and other aliases to become a nobody, a half-fae who did not know her fae origins.”

Eric was humbled: after centuries of hiding it, she had given him her true name within hours of meeting him. He said quietly, “You gave me a great gift the night we met.”

Humility wasn't an emotion Rory had felt from the proud vampire until then. She smiled warmly at him. “How could I not, after you thanked me from the heart.”

Remembering the night they met, they looked at each other quietly for a moment, until Rory cleared her throat and began again.

“Stefan asked how much longer I could mask my scent and was not surprised when I said until dawn. I might have wondered at that, when no fae can mask indefinitely unless they are truly scentless like me, but we set off again immediately. We travelled south for three nights at a punishing pace. In the day he sedated me, something we both regretted. Me, because I had no chance to escape.”

“He did not hurt you.”

“No, he kept his word. He was an honourable vampire. The best kind,” Rory said seriously, meeting his eyes. Eric acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “On the fourth night, we arrived at our destination: a highly guarded, very well hidden cave system in the foothills of Parnassus. A stone's throw from Delphi.”

“Ah.”

“Quite. I had no idea whose lair I was walking into, only understanding that it was a vampire of some significance when Stefan apologised and blindfolded me so I couldn't find the caves again. We were stopped half a dozen times on the way in, weres and vampire guards, rough hands patting me down, checking my iron shackles. I wasn't gagged, but the walls were dripping with wards and protection spells. I doubted I could mutter half a syllable of magic without triggering a hex.

“Finally, Stefan, who was very tense, handed me over to another vampire and we entered a large cavern where vampires, humans and a demon were gathered. Before I could tell whether the demon was friend or foe, I was pushed roughly to my knees and my blindfold was torn away. I blinked up at an old crone with fangs.”

“The Pythoness.”

“Yes. She stared at me with those dead milky eyes and I glared back. She spoke to Stefan, congratulating him I thought, because he relaxed a little. Then the demon growled out a demand for her opinion and she snapped: ‘Bessos, all will be well. She is the one I saw.'

“Bessos I had never met, but knew by reputation to be bad-tempered and petulant. He was clearly in no mood to put up with the way the aged vampire spoke to him. He sneered: 'I care nothing for your visions, seer, only my unborn son. Should he die, my vengeance will be legendary and from these caves will spew forth a river of blood and ash.'

“She hissed and they began a heated exchange. The spat distracted the vampire holding me and I twisted out of his grip and rose to my feet, shackles clattering with the motion. Abruptly, the room went still. ‘Crone,' I said–”

Eric's eyebrows shot up and Rory flashed a grin at him. “What? I was pissed. And not a vampire. I owed the old girl no respect. 'Crone,' I said. 'Did you order my kidnapping?'

“ 'What of it?' she rasped back. You have not been harmed.'

“ 'Not yet,' I scoffed. Then I spoke to the demon. 'Bessos. If I am to save your unborn son, it was a mistake to drag me here in chains.'

“He scowled and turned to the crone. She hissed: 'It was the fastest way to get her here.'

“Before Bessos could throw another volley of insults, I snapped: ’If time is of the essence then perhaps someone could apprise me of the situation with some haste. Before it is too late for the child.'” Rory repeated her speech with a marked sarcastic drawl.

Eric snorted, imagining the scene vividly. “If you spoke to the Pythoness and an angry demon in that exact tone, I'm surprised you made it out of the room with your head.”

Rory grinned again. “Oh you bet I used that _tone_. They needed me, so I risked a little insolence. And you forget, I could read the old crone's emotions. She was as angry with Bessos as I was and amused by the way I spoke to her.”

“She has a sense of humour under all those wrinkles?” Eric was faintly surprised.

“Don’t tell anyone. And the old girl wasn’t that amused with me: my barb hit its mark, exasperating her. But it goaded her into barking out the details without any further delay, which was my goal. To cut a long story short, Bessos had been visiting the seer with his heavily pregnant woman to find out if the infant in her belly was a worthy son. As they were leaving, there had been an incident, a fight. I never found out exactly what triggered it, probably Bessos, who not once curbed his temper or his tongue while I was there. During the scuffle the woman had been thrown against a stone wall. Mother and child were close to death and Bessos was threatening violent reprisals, a war, if his son died – the son with a noteworthy future if the seer was to be believed.

“Bessos held the seer responsible for not predicting the fight. The Pythoness needed to appease him. Making it clear I had little choice in the matter if I wanted to continue breathing, she proposed a bargain: my freedom for the child's safe delivery, which was all Bessos cared about. Not the _vessel_.”

“The mother was human?

“Yes. You know how that goes with demon spawn, her life might have been forfeit anyway. Because mother and child were both so close to death–”

“It was too dangerous to give them vampire blood.”

“Yes, accidentally turning either of them before the birth would be disastrous. So the Pythoness desperately needed my help. I refused to agree to her terms until I'd examined the woman. Without Bessos. The crone agreed and he stayed outside of the room, cursing my name.”

Rory closed her eyes for a second. “She was almost dead. Broken shoulder, a skull fracture, but the worst was a cracked pelvis. I told the Pythoness I doubted I could save her. The infant, perhaps, but it was weak. It depended how much blood the mother was leaking internally. I would only make the attempt if the Pythoness personally guaranteed my safety whatever the outcome and promised that Stefan would escort me back as far as the Carpathians. And if the woman survived, Bessos had to leave her there. The handmaidens had cared for her. I knew they'd be kinder than the demon.” She added grimly, “He was the type to kill her if his precious son died and she survived.”

“Did the Pythoness agree to your terms?”

Rory gave a wry grin. “Reluctantly, with much rancour.” She sighed heavily. “I warned them that I hadn’t had much experience with childbirth, but I would do my best. First, I used my fae abilities to heal the woman as much as I could but she didn't regain consciousness. There was no way either of them would have survived a labour.”

Her voice was bleak. “After I'd recovered some strength, I prepared for a caesarean. It was my first. I have not performed another.” She looked down, in shame Eric thought.

She spoke quietly. “Stefan's redhead – she was French, her name was Mathilde – agreed to give the woman blood as soon as,” she swallowed convulsively, “as I cut the infant out of her. It was her only chance.”

Her hands clenched and her eyes were far away. Eric moved closer, not liking the way her skin had paled and shone with sweat. She spoke slowly and haltingly, her hands moving in the air as she relived that night.

“I worked as fast as I could. Cut open her belly … found her womb … opened it. But by the time I got my hands on the child he was swimming in blood. He was slick with it … like a fish, slipping out of my hands … so much blood… too much …”

Her breath caught and she covered her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut. Eric blurred from his couch to sit beside her, placing one cool hand on the back of her neck, the other on her forehead. He hushed her, stroking the hair from her face as she swallowed noisily and leant into his cool hand gratefully, trying to quell the nausea she felt.

After a minute of breathing deeply, she seemed better and he took his hands away, scooting back a little so there was some space between them, but staying on ‘her’ couch.

She said sheepishly, “Sorry.”

She took a deep breath. “I had the infant delivered in minutes and healed him enough to stabilise him. Mathilde tugged out the placenta and opened her wrist over the woman's belly. The child lived. Barely. The woman died. Mathilde might have turned her I think, but she lost too much blood, too fast and Mathilde herself was struggling with the scent of it. I was exhausted, but I staggered out of the room and thrust the babe into Bessos's waiting grasp. I told him to get to Dae as fast as he could. Find a wet nurse. Then I collapsed.”

She stopped to wipe her face, waving away his concern. “I woke up in one of the handmaiden's rooms the next day. They'd washed the blood off me, put me in clean clothes. Before I left, the Pythoness asked to see me. She was brisk, rude. You know how she is. But under that belligerent manner of hers, she felt a great deal of sympathy for the dead woman, and for Mathilde and me.” She looked straight at Eric for the first time since she’d broken down. “Some of you hide great depths behind your fangs.”

Eric smiled faintly. “They make a good disguise. Like your fae illusions and glamours.”

“They do. It takes time to see what’s really underneath.” They looked at each other for a long moment.

“So what happened next?” Eric said when the silence had stretched far enough.

“The old girl said I had averted a potential war and much bloodshed. She offered me payment: a fist-sized ruby. I told her I wanted nothing, only that she kept my identity secret. You see, when I spoke to Bessos I spoke the demon tongue and she felt no surprise. And Stefan knew my scent wouldn’t be a problem. A seer powerful enough to see me half a continent away, to know that the weres in the Carpathians would know a fae who could find me … She knew more about me than I found comfortable. I asked her to take a blood oath never to reveal what she knew about me.”

“She agreed?”

Rory tried to look modest. “She owed me. I insisted.”

Eric looked suitably impressed. A blood oath, a binding one, was a rare thing for a vampire to do. The Pythoness could not be made to break it, so Rory’s, or rather Sorcha's identity, was safe from that quarter.

“That’s about it. Stefan escorted me back to the Carpathians, and I returned to Budapest and went on an elf hunt.” She played with her pendant for a moment. “I haven’t thought about that night for a long time. It … is difficult for me to relive it.”

Eric knew it wasn’t the gore, she was far from squeamish. “Losing the woman?”

She pierced him with a look. “I killed her.”

Eric stilled. He didn’t point out what she surely knew: that the woman would have likely died anyway or that the demon and the Pythoness hadn’t give her much choice.

Rory shook her head slightly, as if she knew what he was thinking. She did: she’d thought it herself a million times but in her heart she felt those facts didn’t absolve her. She said evenly, “I made the decision. It was my hand on the knife, my skin drenched in her blood.”

His blue eyes were stormy, matching his emotions, but he didn’t try to soften it. “Yes. You killed her.”

She bobbed her head, thanking him for his honesty. “It hit me hard. I would have found it easier to accept if she’d woken and consented. But she didn’t and I made the decision for her. I chose my life, the child’s life over her.”

“It was the only choice.” He paused. “You were strong enough to make it.”

She gave a wry smile. “Yes. I didn’t falter or hesitate, didn’t grieve until the business was long over.”

“You averted a war and protected your secret. These things do not come cheap.”

She sighed. “No, they don’t.” She turned away and poured fresh drinks. They settled back at opposite ends of the couch, comfortable with the closeness and the silence.

After her wine was gone Rory asked, “Have I answered you question satisfactorily?”

“Yes, you have.”

“Then it is my turn.” Rory paused.

Eric saw her hesitation and realised he was not going to like her question one bit. In fact he was probably going to hate it. His jaw twitched. “Go on.”

Green eyes met blue as she echoed the format of his question: “Tell me your history with Sookie Stackhouse.”

Blue eyes widened a fraction. She felt his slight surprise; he had not expected that question.

He sat back slowly, thinking. Thinking and locking down his emotions. Rory could sense nothing from him when he began, that vampire mask firmly in place.

“Very well. Perhaps it would be good to have an outside opinion, as they say. Sookie came to my bar, looking for a killer to exonerate her brother…”

Stoically, he spoke of their first meeting, the theft at Fangtasia, his staking Longshadow without hesitation. Then the maenad attack, following Sookie to Dallas, her bravery and determination there.

Rory saw a flicker of admiration in his eyes, the first crack in his mask.

The bombing was next, her sucking bullets from him. When he got to the orgy and described his outfit, there were tendrils of amusement coming from him and Rory felt free to laugh. He smirked at her.

Then Bill's disappearance and the bind it put him in with his capricious queen, reluctantly ‘persuading’ Sookie to go to Jackson, sending the wolf to help her, the staking, giving her blood and almost … He skipped over what exactly ‘almost’, but Rory got the gist.

He was just as reluctant to discuss how he entertained Bernard.

His face was still set as he spoke, but she began to sense flashes of emotion from him: concern at Sookie injuries in the car trunk, and unease when she came to rescue him at the gas station. Anger at himself for failing to anticipate the Were ambush at her house, and amusement as he described Sookie rescinding both his and Bill's invitations.

When he described those brief, wonderful nights under Hallow's curse, he locked down again. Tight. She didn't understand that until he got to the part where the curse was lifted and he lost that time. He was stony as he described Sookie leaving for work as if nothing had happened, Pam only half filling him in on his missing time, him writing a check and leaving without a backward glance.

Evidently, he didn’t want Rory to know how he felt about the curse and that puzzled her. Did he feel Sookie had taken advantage of him, which Rory sort of thought she might have, or did he resent her for keeping quiet about what happened? Maybe, Rory thought, it was just too painful to remember after the way things turned out.

Still unemotional, he described his slow realisation that something important had happened that he couldn’t remember. It distracted him, plagued him. He stayed away, but Sookie came to ask a favour, still refusing to tell him anything. He was frustrated, torn between wanting her and wanting her gone, done with. She made him vulnerable in his dangerous world. He bluntly admitted he considered killing her for his own safety, but found to his disgust he couldn’t do it. Then he became even more distracted when she was in danger at every turn: a sniper, a house fire, her friend getting involved with Mickey. Finally he forced the story out of her, only the shit hit the fan again, first with Mickey and then with Twining.

Rory felt nothing from him until he got to Mickey’s attack, catching a flash of fear and admiration for Sookie. Then, as he described how he’d mistakenly sent Hot Rain’s would-be assassin to protect Sookie, she sensed a flash self-recrimination for his error.

She got a strong surge of protectiveness when he spoke of forcing Bill to reveal the queen’s orders concerning Sookie. He glossed over the tiger, but not tracking him and Sookie when they were kidnapped only to find Sookie holding down a struggling Sandra Pelt after she’d stunned Sandra’s henchman. That had impressed him. And then the fight at the abbey, when yet again a protector abandoned her and he took advantage.

Rhodes. This was hard for him and Rory soon saw why. Sookie was with the tiger and working for Eric’s queen, not him. He had no official connection with her. And yet when the telepath caught Andre's interest, he found himself stepping in, putting himself at risk to protect her again.

Rory asked how Sookie felt about the bond they were forced to make.

Reluctant, Eric paused for a long moment before quietly describing Sookie’s flight from the scene and her traumatised reaction coming loud and clear through the fresh blood bond. He hesitated again. Then he described how Sookie fought the effects whilst he was adjusting to how tightly they were bound. As he went on to explain how the bond intensified his feelings for Sookie until they were undeniable, drawing him to her when she was in danger, Rory felt a surge of doubt from him – a deep uncertainty he muffled at once.

He was emotionless again for the soda-can bomb, the tiger … the trial and the Pythoness … the tiger taking an arrow for Sookie … But the dance, that was something special. His eyes glowed as he described the memory and finally Rory could see an emotion on his face: joy, clear and bright.

Sookie’s dramatic rescue of Eric and Pam amazed Rory. She was perplexed when Eric was ambivalent about it. Grateful, but ambivalent. And Sookie proved her mettle again, rescuing many from the rubble.

Niall entered the tale stage left, like a pantomime villain. Rory agreed with Eric: Brigant sending Claudine had not been enough to protect Sookie, and the prince turning up himself when the fae conflict was at DEFCON 1 was hardly in her best interests either.

Eric did not hide his disapproval of Sookie’s involvement in the pack war. But then he said, with a shrug, that he was as bad for her as the wolf. He ran right to her during de Castro’s takeover. And then after that was settled, his memories flooded back as he sat on her bed … and she sent him packing.

He broke off, looking into the distance. His control was slipping. Rory felt his heartache, but kept quiet.

Sookie was hurt in a scuffle between the tiger and Bill. Eric gave her more blood, and they– Rory filled in that gap, and asked carefully why he felt so conflicted.

Eric shifted uncomfortably, explaining what he offered Sookie that night, an offer that she turned down, telling him what little she wanted from him instead: to carry on with her life as before, making few demands of him. She hadn’t even asked how he felt towards her and he had been perplexed by that.

The recollection disturbed him. And it unsettled Rory too, who began to realise that this story wasn’t a long flirtatious pursuit, culminating in Sookie finally accepting the depth of her affection for Eric when they became lovers. Not at all. It was turning into something else entirely.

It was the shifter who called Eric when Sookie was upset about Calvin’s hand. Not Sookie, Rory noticed. Sookie’s brother had behaved poorly, she agreed with Eric about that.

Eric was grim when he described Sigebert’s attack, admitting he lost control of the bond and couldn’t keep it closed. He never meant for Sookie to come back. Rory thought it was a good sign that she had, but Eric felt that ambivalence, that doubt again. He explained that the rescue had drawn Felipe’s attention to Sookie, made him covet her. That was bad news, but Rory intuited Felipe’s involvement wasn’t the reason for Eric’s mixed feelings about the incident.

Victor … He paused to explain what a huge pain in his ass Felipe’s regent had been. She got his disdain and anger clearly, he wasn’t hiding them. He got wind that Victor planned to escort Sookie to Las Vegas, where Felipe would force her to work for him under the guise of his protection. Or possibly there would be an ‘accident’ on the way and Victor would kill or turn her; Eric wasn’t sure of Victor’s loyalty to de Castro at the time.

A pledge was the only way to refuse a request from his king. He couldn’t reach Sookie to warn her about it. They just about pulled it off, but Victor was suspicious. And no, Sookie and he had never really discussed it. He’d expected a fierce argument, a scolding that never came.

Eric stopped.

He poured some blood and downed it, clearly fortifying himself before he continued. Rory understood soon enough: Victor’s revenge for the pledge, for being outplayed. Sookie was taken and tortured while Victor held Eric helpless in chains and only Pam’s quick thinking saved the day.

Rory echoed Eric’s sheer admiration for Sookie, her strength. The fae siblings were … Well, Rory had tried to heal one of their broken victims and had failed. She knew only too well what devastation Neave and Lochlan could wreak.

Eric looked at his hands as he described the fight at the clinic and Sookie’s slow, halting recovery. When he finished he looked up. “Would your gift have helped her?”

“Yes, at the time. Now, no. Mental scars are very like physical ones. Once they harden they can’t be easily removed. I can only make a difference when the trauma is fresh.”

“Why didn’t Niall –”

She shook her head. “I was in dae, out of reach. And there’s no other fae empaths, of course.”

“Ah. Of course.” The ability came from her demon side. A full demon empath would never reveal their gift let alone volunteer to use it to help Sookie, mostly human as she was.

Eric moved on to Victor’s attempts to hurt him through attacks on Pam and Sookie, and mentioned that Sookie’s fae kin moved in with her.

Rory interrupted. “That would have helped her heal.”

“That touchy-feely family bond the fae have?” Eric asked, remembering the phrase Rory had used the night they met.

“Yes. If Sookie was withering after the torture, having her kin close would have stopped it.”

“Withering?”

“Depression fae-style. With actual physical symptoms. It’s dangerous.”

He nodded absently and moved on to his Maker’s visit, Alexei’s precarious mental state and keeping them both in Shreveport away from Sookie. Then Alexei’s disastrous meltdown that left him and Pam badly injured, and Sookie yelling at him, snapping him out of his funk even though she hated his Maker. He commented, “She would have hated him even more if she knew about the contract.”

“You hadn’t told her.”

“I didn’t have chance to, I had only just found out.”

Eric described the fight at Sookie’s that ended with Coleman, Alexei and Ocella all reduced to ash, including how his Maker saved Sookie and the surge of glee Eric felt from him. He didn’t understand it at first. Not until later, when he found out there was no way to break the contract with Ocella gone.

Eric wanted nothing more than to stop talking, but he carried on doggedly. Victor’s continued harassment. Sookie breaking the bond without warning, becoming more distant. Pam forcing him to tell Sookie about Freyda. Rory raised an accusatory eyebrow.

He shrugged, defiant. “I was still hoping to find a way out.”

“Warning her would have given her time to accept it.”

“She didn’t need time. She was in the shifter’s arms two days–” He bit off the angry words and looked away.

Rory waited.

Stoic and locked down again he carried on, but she was getting scraps of hurt from him. Sookie decided that Victor had to die. She was determined. Planning it. Executing it. Then she had a complete about-face and was reluctant to feed him when he was wounded, in front of his people. When he’d risked everything, they’d risked everything … He knew the bite hurt her but he needed the blood and he could hardly make it pleasurable in front of other people because she would hate that, and yes, he _wouldn’t_ – he was too angry with her. Resentful. Sookie had expected him to kill Victor and he’d done so willingly, but she was appalled that he celebrated the victory.

He said bitterly, “She thought me a monster in that moment.”

“Christians,” Rory commented wryly.

Eric looked at her curiously. “You object to torture.”

She shrugged. “Yes. But not killing in battle, killing to defend the ones you love. Or even to put down a rapid dog like Victor.”

He was pensive, weighing up her comment. “No, it was more than just her faith. She changed after the torture. The damage was deeper than I hoped; it pushed her beyond her limits. She was … afraid of being hurt like that again and taking revenge for it, because she felt Victor was partly to blame. Killing for those motives was a line she hadn’t crossed before. I did not want her there for Victor’s death, I knew it was too close to the bone for her, but there was no other way. Victor was the first time that it wasn’t self-defence in the heat of the moment for her.”

Rory snorted. “That’s splitting hairs. It was self-defence. He was a threat to her. If he hadn’t been killed, as she wanted, then you would have had to contain him some other way.”

“She would have found ‘some other way’ more palatable.”

Rory shook her head. “I don’t think it was the killing, or whether you enjoyed the bloodshed. She’d seen plenty of battles.”

“Too many. If it wasn’t the torture something else would have been the last straw.”

“Bullshit,” Rory said. “Your instinct is to protect her, but anyone who survives Neave and Lochlan is strong-willed enough to survive your world. Having regrets after taking a life is not the same as lacking the stomach for what needs to be done. The woman who scoured the rubble at Rhodes for survivors has plenty of stomach.”

“No. She is a woman of her times, not made for death and destruction.”

Rory raised both eyebrows and pierced him with a look. “Didn’t her strength impress you? Don’t you admire that about her?”

“Yes,” he snapped back. “But I saw how broken she was after those fucking fairies. And she was raised a Christian. You said it yourself.”

“Yes I did. She wanted Victor dead and that conflicted with her Christian morality. But she is also a woman. I think there’s a reason she lashed out at you. I think she wanted you to step in and get the blood on your hands. Then she could sweep the whole thing under the carpet.”

Eric scowled. “I’ve never understood that expression. Why do that? The dirt is still there.”

“Yes, that’s my point. The sin would still be there, staining her soul, but she could pretend she wasn’t culpable. Like all the other occasions you and others took lives to protect her: she washed her hands of those deaths. She had no problem with you meting out justice on her behalf with Longshadow, did she? With Victor, she planned it and participated in it. The blood was on her hands. She couldn’t escape it.”

Eric spoke firmly. “No. She is no coward. She does not hide from things she has done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She dealt with her guilt over killing Debbie Pelt. Killing Victor in cold blood was out of character. It conflicted with her upbringing.”

“Perhaps,” Rory shrugged. “You know her better than me, but you are hardly impartial. I think she is better at lying to herself than you think.”

Eric frowned at that but decided to think about her words later. He pressed on, wanting to plough through the worst. Felipe’s impositions, the party at his house. The were-woman laced with fae blood, Sookie’s anger, the police investigation. Her closeness with Bill as they worked together, another sharp reminder that he would be gone soon and another would take his place. Sookie’s refusal to tell him she had the Cluviel Dor. Her distance, turning him away, refusing to talk, still angry about the feeding he assumed.

Eric stopped, puzzled. “You are not…”

“Not what?”

“Not disapproving. About the Were.”

Rory shrugged, prepared to play devil’s advocate. “Did you mean to get intoxicated?”

“No. I did not realise her blood had been … doped.”

“Were you going to go further than feeding?”

“No.”

“Even once you were, in effect, drunk?”

“No. I might have drained her, but not that. I didn’t even notice she was … enjoying herself.”

“Did you glamour her to do that?”

“No.” He couldn’t quite believe Rory was giving him a pass. Even Pam had been annoyed with him. “You would be angry if you were in Sookie’s shoes.”

“At first. But later I’d be pissed at myself.”

Eric was stumped. “How so?”

Rory wanted to make him see something. “I’ve learnt a lot about vampires in the last few months. You don’t need much blood at your age. She could feed you, right? Just her, no ill effects?”

“Yes.”

“You were hungry enough to drink from an untested source with enemies in your house, potentially leaving you vulnerable. Would you usually do that?”

He admitted slowly, “No. I would have fed elsewhere, the night before perhaps.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He hesitated.

“You wanted to stay true to her, as she’d asked you,” she said shrewdly. “So you didn’t feed because Sookie wasn’t available. You were waiting for her, expecting she would arrive in time. In fact she was late and didn’t phone. You were hungry. And worried that she was in danger.”

Eric flinched.

“That’s exactly what you thought, isn’t it? That she was in trouble. That’s why you chose the Were, the stronger blood in case you needed to fight.” She frowned. “And yet you still feel remorse. Why?”

“She saw it. It hurt her.”

“But she knew that if she wasn’t feeding you, you had to drink from someone. Especially with Felipe breathing down your neck. And she knew what feeding entailed, so why … Oh. I see.” Rory mimed lifting a rug and sweeping dirt with her hands.

“That saying again.”

“Uh-huh.” She waited expectantly for him to join the dots.

Eric said slowly, “If she didn’t see it, she didn’t have to …”

Rory said bluntly, “Face what you are.”

His shoulders slumped. “Yes. That.” It still bothered him that Sookie had never really accepted what he was. Feeding was just one more thing: the power structure, his ties to Ocella, the violence, bloodlust … even the fact he was actually dead, deep down she believed that made vampires worth less than the living … He halted the bitter thoughts with an effort.

He gritted his teeth and forced himself to describe the pack meeting, Jannalynn’s attack and Sam’s resurrection. The inevitable divorce. He regained some composure when he detailed his careful plan to make sure Sookie ended up in the shifter’s arms sooner rather than later.

Then he got to the last time he saw her before Oklahoma, injured again, with the shifter at her side, refusing his blood and asking him to let her go.

“My plan was a great success,” he said wryly, picking up his drink and downing the last of the blood. The silence stretched as Eric stared blindly into the empty goblet in his hand.

Rory gave in to her impulse, scooting over to lean against him. Putting her hand on his bare arm, she began to stroke him, soothing him the fae way. For a while he let her, feeling the tickle of her energy soaking into his flesh. Then he put his hand on top of hers and stilled it, squeezing gently.

She squeezed back once before she pulled away. She pulled her legs up, sitting sideways to face him. “May I ask something?”

He relaxed back against the chair. “Go ahead.”

“You fell in love when you were cursed. Have you considered that–?”

He interrupted firmly. “No. The curse was meant to send me to my heart’s desire. I already … had feelings for her. And the curse certainly couldn’t be responsible for my feelings after it was broken.” He paused. “But perhaps it was responsible for hers.”

Rory frowned. “You think the curse affected her too?”

“No, not directly. I was helpless, I needed her. She responds to that.”

“A saviour complex? Hmm.” Rory thought over what she’d heard about Sookie. It fitted. “Perhaps.”

But then why hadn’t Sookie tried to free Eric from Ocella’s contract? She didn’t doubt that the join played a part, but that came later. Had trauma from the torture overridden Sookie’s basic nature in more ways than Eric suspected?

Rory narrowed her eyes at Eric, who was deep in thought. Perhaps the proud vampire in front of her hadn’t let the woman he loved know how distasteful the marriage to Freyda was to him. That actually seemed very probable to Rory; that he would not ask his woman for help even though part of him wanted Sookie to offer to use the Cluviel Dor. Of course, once Sookie had used the wish to save the shifter, the fae magic had sealed her fate and the contract his.

Rory cleared her throat. “One more question.”

Eric sighed. “Go on.”

Rory thought that the uncertainty and doubt he kept feeling during his tale was connected to the blood bond. “The bond. Do you regret it because neither of you chose it freely?”

Eric looked away for a second, and there was that flash of doubt again. Then he looked her in the eyes. “No. I don’t regret it, but Sookie resented it. She feared it made her … fonder of me than she would have been. Or that I might use it to call her, manipulate her. I never consciously did so.”

“Not consciously.”

“No,” he said evenly.

“You think …”

“My feelings for her are very strong. I may have … influenced her without intending to.”

Rory didn’t point out his slip into the present tense. Instead she said, “You think her feelings in the bond were an echo of your own, that you somehow drew them from her. Is that possible? Wouldn’t you be able to distinguish genuine feelings?”

“I do not know. I do not have much experience with bonds.”

“You have other blood ties. To your children.”

“Maker ties are not quite the same. And neither Pam nor Karin loved me. Not in that way. Once they weren’t ruled by hunger and desire, once they didn’t need to be controlled, I often shut down our connections when we were together to give them privacy.” He paused. “And Ocella …”

“I shouldn’t imagine that would help.”

“No.” Eric looked right at her. “Tell me the truth Sorcha.”

Sorcha looked right back. “I didn’t spend much time with her in your presence. So this is second hand, from what you told me tonight … a complicated tale.”

She sat back, taking a moment to review everything, comparing Sookie’s behaviour with the bond and without it, accounting for his own bias in the telling as best she could.

It seemed clear cut. Sookie had turned away from him once the bond was broken, despite continuing to profess her love. The woman who risked everything to save him at Rhodes was surely not the same woman who’d watched him leave for Oklahoma, stripped of his autonomy and children.

“Before the bond, she was attracted to you, but not interested in getting involved, wary of you. She wanted to keep you at a distance, or she would have told you what happened between you and her under Hallow’s curse.”

Eric nodded.

“She risked everything to save you at Rhodes, while the bond was fresh, strong. But she did not turn to you after that, and even when you came together later, she held back. If you were influencing her, it was very subtle or she fought it like she fought the fae magic.”

Eric nodded again.

“Your feelings drew her to you during Sigebert’s attack. And she came to your aid with Ocella, perhaps for similar reasons. Then once the bond was broken…” She shook her head sadly.

Eric nodded, thinking again that the shifter had seen what he missed. “We agree then. It was the blood. Perhaps it is not only Sookie who practises self-deception.” He smiled crookedly. “What do they say? No fool like an old fool.”

He looked down into his empty goblet regretfully. “No toast tonight. I’m out.”

“Then I will toast for us both.” Sorcha raising her glass to him. “To honest friends.”

He repeated the phrase quietly as she drained the last dregs of her wine.

...

**One April night near Shreveport:**

* * *

“Tear off the mask, your face is glorious” _–_ _Rumi_ _  
_

* * *

The fourth time Eric arrived on the front steps of Sorcha's sprawling house he was looking forward to their conversation.

It had been good to talk through everything that happened between him and Sookie; he felt lighter and easier with his decision to draw a line under that chapter of his existence.

Sorcha had been right to suggest these meetings. After their last talk, his growing connection with her couldn't be ignored and he didn't plan to resist his impulse to trust her any longer. She made an interesting ally. He was contemplating bringing her into his full confidence that very evening, getting her input on his strategies and plans within the vampire hierarchy. He was missing Karin’s ear. Pam was not quite impartial enough yet and, being older, Sorcha had a deeper understanding of supernatural politics than his surviving child.

For the first time Sorcha didn't appear immediately. He rang the brass bell that hung from a bracket by the door and waited. A few moments later the heavy door swung open.

Sorcha’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, her face was paler than ever and her hair was uncombed. She wore soft grey sweat pants, a baggy charcoal sweater and her feet were bare.

Eric took a quick step forwards, then stopped himself, gruffly demanding, “What has happened?”

Sorcha smiled faintly to herself and said softly, “Come in, Eric,” stepping back so he could enter.

Eric waited while she shut and bolted the door, only frowning once her back was turned to lead him into the house. Something was definitely wrong.

In the dark hothouse the candles were lit already, their warm yellow light pooling over the couches comfortingly. Refreshments waited on the low table, but not quite as before. Next to the usual carafe of dark blood, a crystal decanter of amber liquid glinted in the light. When Eric took in the half-finished glass and placed the distinctive smell of brandy, he stopped, his frown deepening.

Sorcha took a seat in her usual spot and gestured for him to sit next to her. He did, kicking off his shoes first. He took the other end of the couch and turned towards her, sitting sideways with one leg drawn up. His eyes glittered in the candlelight as he scanned her serious face.

She reached her hands out wordlessly, palm up between them. He hesitated, and then answered her unspoken request, resting his large hands gently on hers, palm down. She curled her fingers around them, and he reciprocated, gripping her hands loosely.

She began to run her thumbs over his cool knuckles, her clear green eyes never leaving his.

“What is wrong?” he asked quietly.

“I came to a decision today. Tonight, if you wish to hear it, I will tell you my history with the fae, that part that is the root of the bad blood between me and my mother's race.” She paused, but didn't stop the slow rhythmic sweep of her thumbs. “I have never told another the whole of it. Not a lover, not a friend. Not even my father.”

Eric was still, a cold and beautiful statue. He well remembered the exchange she proposed the first time he asked about her relationship with the fae. He felt the warmth of her hands and drowned in the living green of her eyes, giving himself long seconds to think.

He squeezed her hands gently and began to move his thumbs too, returning her gesture of comfort.

“Then tonight I will tell you my history with my Maker.” He paused. “I have never spoken the whole of it to another. Not to Karin or Pam … not to Sookie.”

“Very well.” She accepted his offer, glancing towards the table. “A drink first? A little Dutch courage.”

“I have never found the Dutch lacking in that area.” He squeezed her hands briefly before he let go to pick up the carafe of blood. He poured a full goblet and raised it to his nose as she topped up her brandy.

“Shapeshifter?” he asked.

“Bear. I thought you might appreciate something a little stronger.”

He nodded, and they drank in silence. She bared her teeth as the brandy warmed her throat. He closed his eyes, savouring the extra kick of the were blood.

Once their drinks were finished, Sorcha curled into a comfortable position on the couch and prepared herself. Eric turned to sit sideways again so he could face her.

His face clear and his voice firm he said, “I am elder. I will go first.” She opened her mouth, and he silenced her with a finger on her lips. “It is my turn. You spoke first last we met.”

After a second, she acquiesced with a nod, taking his hand from her face. Keeping it clasped in hers, she brought it to rest on her lap.

He began with a drunken walk on a moonlit night, and a stranger lying injured by the side of the road.

Sorcha held his hand while he spoke, riding his emotions with him as he gave free reign to them. He knew she was using her empathy to absorb them at the most difficult parts, cushioning him, but he allowed it. Quite frankly he was grateful, doubting his ability to get through the tale alone. As it was, he was relieved each time he had to pause for her questions or for her to regain her composure.

She was grim while he talked of those first few nights: the awful hunger, the desperation to get away, the terrible realisation that he lost everything and had become other, draugar. Walker after death. He spoke unemotionally of his Maker’s expectations. Obedience. Subservience. Sex. Of how he fought to get away at first and Ocella let him think he could, merely overwhelming him with his superior strength time and again until Eric realised he couldn’t win and submitted.

Eric outline those early years in general terms. Sorcha had expected the constant travelling, the hiding in the shadows. It was not so dissimilar to her experience as a supernatural in the mundane human world. Never revealing what she was, moving on to escape discovery if she couldn’t dazzle humans to forget their suspicions with her fae glamour.

Then Eric paused, struggling for how to begin, and she knew he was coming to the heart of it, the bloody toxic heart.

He chose to tell her what he knew of Ocella’s origins first. To delay the pain, to rationalise his Maker’s actions or to give her some warning, she wasn’t sure which.

The Empire was a harsh mistress, but Ocella was a soldier of Rome, a favoured citizen. That privileged position gave Ocella power over those who weren’t citizens. Their lives were cheap. He had kept slaves, used them as he wished, as Romans did. Eric explained that his Maker’s background combined with his transformation into a being so much faster and more powerful than a mere human had given Ocella tremendous sense of superiority and deep contempt for lesser beings.

Then he began.

She had heard enough of the Roman to anticipate brutality, but some of the terrible things he compelled Eric to do in those early years exceeded her expectations. She was revolted by the depravity of his commands as he tried to remould Eric in his image, to beat Eric into accepting that he was vampire, a predator at the top of the food chain able to do whatever he wanted to the human scum at the bottom…

She listened with growing fury as Eric described a string of horrors, horrors that went against his very nature: killing for sport, rape, treachery. His face betrayed only a ripple of his feelings, but she felt them clear and true, the echoes of his remembered shame and desperation, loathing and longing to escape.

After a particularly gruesome bloodbath involving a whole family, from aged grandfather to new born babe, she shook with suppressed rage and Eric had to stop while she cursed Ocella’s name in as many languages as she knew.

It took a while.

Having got the worst over, Eric turned to lighter memories of those early years, describing how he had revelled in his speed and strength, and relished his ability to fly and fight without tiring. She was relieved to feel his joy and pride. He spoke fondly of learning to defend himself under Ocella’s instruction, how it prepared him for striking out on his own.

Sorcha stopped him again then, astonished by what he felt and asking hotly why he held any affection for the vampire who’d taken him away from his family, his people.

Eric’s eyes were far away. “Ocella was far from stupid. He did not wish me broken and destroyed; only bent to his will sufficiently to make me loyal. He liked,” here he smiled wryly, “spirited companions. For that, he had to allow me some encouragement, something I could gain satisfaction from. He knew my people’s philosophy, my love of battle, and he used those to his advantage, playing on my strong desire to survive. He taught me to use my nature, my speed, any weapon to hand to win a fight. And I am grateful: those lessons saved my ass many times.

“Of course,” he added slowly, “you have to also understand that my feelings for Ocella were … confused by his blood in me. When I was freshly turned and we exchanged blood often, I found myself feeling affection towards him and did not question it. Some of our time together was … pleasant. I was drawn to him.” He pause before he add in a harder voice, “He kept me in ignorance of the connection between us for twenty years, telling me only a little of what it could do.”

Rory stiffened and her hand tightened on his.

Eric spoke evenly. “I see you understand.”

“Oh yes.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “I understand being deceived, having your feelings twisted against you for someone else’s benefit only too well.”

Eric filed that way and continued. “Once Ocella allowed me to interact with others of our kind, I eventually pieced together why I felt affection and lust around him. I could not distinguish where my feelings ended and his began, nor could I resist them.”

“That is why it distresses you – that you may have influenced Sookie with your blood.”

“Yes. It is … not good to be influenced like that.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed.

“Eventually, once Ocella stopped giving me blood so often, my emotions were my own again. To survive, I learnt to disguise and hide my deepest feelings as they began to resurface. I thought I had accepted my situation, his power over me, but as soon as I realised it wasn’t quite complete I resisted any way I could, however slight.” He sighed. “Our relationship and my feelings for him were complex. It is only since his final death that I can really be sure of them.”

She frowned. “But weren’t you free of him once you were apart? You said he encouraged you to strike out on your own, to become independent of him.”

“Yes, he did. But I soon learnt that didn’t mean Ocella would leave me alone.”

Eric went on to relate various occasions when his Maker turned up out of the blue to intrude on his so-called independence.

They were together for nearly a century after Eric’s turning. Then Ocella took a lover he planned to turn and sent Eric away. Eric had been chaffing under Ocella’s yoke by then and could hardly believe his luck, but barely a year later Ocella strolled into the house Eric had set himself up in, casually ordering Eric to kill the woman he was with. Sorcha felt Eric’s shock and hopelessness at the memory, and his fear when he found out that Ocella had casually snuffed out his new child for some minor disobedience.

That pattern was repeated for the next sixty years, Ocella giving him longer on his own each time. Eric realised he was being tested, and that any time he got too complacent – that was the word he used, but Sorcha mentally corrected it to _too happy_ and called Ocella a son of a bitch and worse in her head – that was when his Maker turned up.

Then Eric got a good thirty years to himself, but Ocella called him back because he was injured. Eric stayed with him in Italy for a decade and by the time Nadia showed up there, he was desperate to taste freedom again. Ocella had _suggested_ that if Eric couldn’t hold his own against older vampires he needed to stay under his Maker’s protection, and Ocella’s _suggestions_ had a way of becoming reality. That was why Eric had been determined to defeat Nadia in combat, giving her the thorough trouncing that began her vendetta against him.

Sorcha shook her head at fate’s cruel twists. If Ocella hadn’t egged Eric on, perhaps he wouldn’t have made an enemy of the sadistic Nadia, who had borne her grudge through the centuries until, as Queen of Alabama, she found a way to take revenge on Eric and his Maker through Freyda.

In his third century, Eric established himself under a local queen in Greece and that gave him some protection even though Ocella was never far away. He felt confident enough to turn Karin, which was a story he didn’t go into beyond saying he was thankful he was living in a nest and she had good control of herself when Ocella turned up to ‘inspect’ her twenty years after her turning.

Ocella hung around in Greece and met Tariq, Nadia’s maker, who had befriended Eric. Ocella killing Tariq in a fit of jealous was a nasty reminder of his hold over Eric, but there were repercussions and Ocella was forced to leave the area. Not long after that Eric moved on too, settling in France. Ocella left him alone for another century, turning up just in time to mess up Eric’s position with the king by causing an incident that risked exposure.

A couple more examples like that, and Sorcha was fuming, spitting out a tirade of curses worthy of the foulest mouthed sailor. Eric smiled slightly as she finally wound down.

“…that bastard. How can you be so calm about it? He turned up every time you got settled and deliberately took away whatever made you content. Why the fuck didn’t you have him killed?”

“Ah. That.” He sat back and grimaced. “Partly because there were heavy punishments for a child that turned on their maker in the Old World, partly because it would have been difficult and dangerous because of his age, and … I was hesitant, always finding some reason to forgive him, to stay my hand.”

“What? Why –” He began running his thumb over her knuckles and she stopped her outburst, feeling his uncertainty and a hint of defeat, helplessness. She guessed at what it meant. “A maker’s command?”

“No. He had commanded me never to kill him when I first rose, but commands are specific and I could have got round that. After Ocella was ended…” He stopped and started over. “When he arrived in Bon Temps, Sookie surprised him. He expected an ordinary human. That convinced me he knew little of her or our true relationship before he arrived, that he’d only heard rumours that I’d secured an asset, a human telepath, with a pledge. So I believed that when he took Freyda’s money and signed the contract he was acting in what he thought, however misguidedly, were my best interests. I was offended, hurt that he didn’t respect the position I’d built for myself and that he treated me like a vassal with no say in my own life. But that was all; I did not see the contract as part of a pattern.”

Sorcha frowned in disbelief.

“Yes, that is … astonishing, isn’t it? After everything my Maker had done over the centuries.” He gestured with his free hand. “But Ocella had never secured a political position for me before, and he had certainly never been enthusiastic about seeing me with a woman as attractive as Freyda. That made the more benevolent motives I imagined plausible. It wasn’t until a few months after I went to Oklahoma that things came into focus.”

Sorcha felt a pulse of unease and couldn’t be sure whether it came from Eric or herself.

“One night I began to think over my long history with Ocella. He liked to toy with his children, manipulate them. Even once he no longer wanted me for himself, he did not like to see me with anyone else. He was a jealous maker. I knew all that. That’s why I wasn’t as suspicious of his motives with Freyda as I should have been when he darkened my doorstep. His behaviour convinced me he genuinely expected me to welcome the marriage. And that wasn’t unreasonable; I enjoy leadership, have sought it out many times. Consort is a higher position than sheriff, and he always pushed me to be more ambitious.

“Naturally, while he was in Shreveport I kept him away from Sookie and assumed I had succeeded in deflecting his attention from her. I did not know Ocella already knew from Freyda and her spy Felicia how … erratically I was behaving over Sookie long before he came to Shreveport. I failed to connect the obvious dots: the contract was primarily meant to tear us apart, teach me a lesson for daring to … care about a human that way. It wasn’t about elevating my position at all, it was petty jealousy and vampire pride.

“When the penny finally dropped, that night in Oklahoma, I was furious with him and with myself for not seeing that. I spent several nights going over similar incidents when he’d shown up and inserted himself into my existence, only to leave a trail of havoc and destruction, but I had never questioned why. That night I did. I re-evaluated everything.

“I saw the truth. He played me. He had, for centuries, sabotaged my efforts to establish myself in the hierarchy over and over even while he berated me for not having enough ambition. He knew carving out a place for myself was important to me, and he interfered simply because he could. I had found something with Sookie that mattered to me just as much and he meant to ruin that too.”

Eric spoke bitterly. “Even though I had earned a place at his side centuries earlier, earned enough of his respect to call him Ocella, even though he called me kin, he only paid lip service to that. He treated me as his property, his slave, whenever it suited him. I asked myself why I had respected him so much and … I did not have an answer. True, he turned me, taught me to survive, gave me this life, but he did not…” He grappled for the right words.

“Care about you as family should,” Sorcha provided shrewdly, driving the nail home true.

“No. He did not,” Eric said bleakly.

Despite her fury at his psychopathic maker, Sorcha appreciated that Eric had lost a father figure. His disappointment in Ocella ran deep, she could feel it.

Hoping to give him comfort she said gently, “I do not think such true caring was in his nature. Perhaps it never was. Or perhaps he had the capability once and the centuries sucked him dry of it.

He sighed. “We do not change so much when we are turned. Ocella had much cruelty in him as a Maker. The seeds of it must have been there when he was human.”

“He cared only for himself, his own twisted desires. You are very different.” Sorcha tilted her head. “Why did it take his death for you to see him for what he was?”

Eric shifted on the couch. “It is a guess, but I do not think it a coincidence that I did not question our relationship with a clear head until some months after his death.”

“His blood?” Sorcha didn’t fully understand the maker-child relationship, but blood was definitely at the heart of it.

“More than blood.” She felt a swell of pain and self-doubt from him with his next words. “I think it quite likely that Ocella glamoured me.”

“Glamoured you? But vampires can’t be–” Sorcha halted and processed the implications. “You mean before he turned you.”

Eric nodded. “The practise is frowned on, because the results are unpredictable. If it was his habit to attempt it, it might explain his failure to turn a child before me.”

“And the glamour would last until he died?”

“Yes. If the turning process is successful it fixes the imprint.”

A thousand years of manipulation. Sorcha failed to keep the disgust out of her voice. “So what do you think he _programmed_ you with?”

“Something subtle, something I wouldn’t notice. An inclination towards him, a predisposition to respect him, not to question his motives too deeply maybe. Nothing as gauche as undying loyalty and affection, otherwise he’d have missed out on enjoying my … resistance.”

Sorcha curled her lip in disgust. “A quick death was too kind.”

“Perhaps. But he made me what I am. I am grateful for that, and the things he taught me.”

“I am glad that the fucker is ash and you are free of him.”

Eric sighed heavily. “I would say the same.”

They sat in silence for a while as Sorcha stroked his knuckles with her thumb.

Then Eric chuckled quietly. “Sookie wanted to end him as soon as she met him too.”

“She did? She’d have had to stake him in his day-death to have a chance of survival.”

“If I hadn’t asked her not to, she might have staked him that night at her house.” He shook his head. “And he knew it. She hadn’t held back her … disapproval of him the night they met. But that was partly my fault.”

“You told her about him before then?”

“Not in any detail. We spoke of Aude once. I mentioned Ocella and that I never wanted her to be in a situation she couldn’t escape. I was thinking of de Castro’s plans for her at the time.”

“So why did she want Ocella dead?” Sorcha’s eyes widened. “Did he threaten her?”

“No, no it wasn’t that. Ocella’s arrival caught me off guard. His and Alexei’s proximity affected Sookie through the bond and I was very worried about her. As I said, I have little experience with bonds and I … made a mistake.”

Sorcha rubbed his knuckles, encouraging him on.

“As usual, I hid my feelings from Ocella. I don’t know how it happened, but instead of containing, damping my emotions–”

Sorcha broke in. “Is that what you do around me?”

His mouth twitched, amused and annoyed by her interruption. “Yes, that. Does it work?”

“Yes, mostly. I suppose that’s a positive. Dealing with your bastard of a maker taught you to be proficient in controlling your emotions.”

“Quite. And that is what I did as soon as he appeared. Instead of working the way it normally did, my emotions spilled over the blood bond and flooded into Sookie. I didn’t have the control to stop that and hide my reactions from Ocella. I didn’t even realise it was happening at first, but that was why she reacted so negatively to him, putting herself in danger. She didn’t hide it at all, and she is quite skilled at that because of her telepathy.”

Sorcha sighed. “I don’t suppose you ever talked about that?

“Only a little. Mostly about Alexei –Sookie was frustrated that I couldn’t, or in her eyes wouldn’t, intervene on his behalf. His youthful appearance and obvious mental fragility tugged on her sympathy. I was … relieved Ocella had a companion, and no doubt she felt that.”

“Oh dear.” Sorcha could relate to Eric’s relief, but she wondered if Sookie had been in a position to understand it or how thoroughly Eric's hands were tied. He had no power to influence Ocella. Humans these days, especially Americans, took their freedoms for granted. They had no frame of reference for the complicated obligations and restrictions that most ancient beings had been navigating for centuries, as automatically as breathing – or in this case, perhaps dropping fang would be a better analogy.

“Indeed. She wasn’t pleased when I told her I’d have to warm Ocella’s bed if he asked, either.”

Sorcha inhaled sharply, about to launch into another attack on his Maker judging by the scowl forming on her face. Eric interrupted before she could. “No, he did not ask that of me before he was ended. But he would have done if Alexei hadn’t needed his attention.”

“Knowing full well how difficult that would be for you and for Sookie to bear. Bastard.” Sorcha shook her head. “And I thought my parent’s situation was complicated.”

Eric raised an eyebrow.

She grimaced. “It is not easy to love someone who has … prior obligations. Even when such things are part of your culture.”

Eric said slowly, “Obligations. You said Memnon had business in the demon realm.”

“Yes. That would be his wife, mother to Tarok and Erdal, his sons.”

“Ah.”

“Aideen knew he was married when they met. Demon marriage contracts are almost impossible to break and he was bound for another sixty years or so. He risked the wrath of his wife and her family to be with my mother. You know, even once he was free they never married. They didn’t need it. Marriage meant very little beyond obligation to them both, but love was everything to them. They were very alike that way. Aideen accepted his marriage and that he had to spend time with his wife. But that is not really my story to tell.”

Eric glanced at the sky. The night was half over. “It is time for your tale now, I think.”

“You have spilt enough of Ocella’s poison?”

“Yes.” Eric squeezed her hand gently. “Your turn, if you are up to it.”

“Let me wash my face first. And have another drink.”

...

**One April night, part two:**

* * *

"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not." _Francois de La Rochefoucauld_

* * *

Sorcha settled herself back on the couch and Eric took her hand before she began.

“No-one knows how I came to exist. Demons have problems enough mating with humans; they are not compatible reproductively with other species. Yet here I am. My mother believed there was something innate, in her own and Memnon’s primal essences, that allowed it. She of the land, and he of the stone.”

Eric remembered her true surname. “Petrides. Petra, rock. This means something?”

“I cannot tell you demon secrets.”

Eric slitted his eyes thoughtfully. “I have known ancient demons. I might guess their family names indicate … elements?”

Her only reply was a smile. She continued, “When I was young, my mother said the strength of their love birthed me. A little fanciful, but it had a grain of truth. A fae woman’s fertility increases with her happiness and the – the fae word translates as _resonance_ , but has no exact equivalent – the _harmony_ of the pairing would be close to the concept.

“And Aideen and Memnon certainly filled each other with joy. When they first met they had, by all accounts, a short intense affair. No-one was more shocked than Aideen when Memnon’s seed found fertile ground in her belly. Memnon had returned to Dae and she had no way of reaching him. But, unable to bear their separation, he returned to seek her out and was amazed to find her swollen with his child. He called me his treasure, a gift from the gods of chance. The pregnancy was difficult, but we both survived. Aideen made a home for us in this realm and we were content. Until I began to grow into womanhood.”

Sensing her hesitancy, Eric began to stroke her palm with his thumb.

“I was an even-tempered child.” She felt his flash of amusement. “Hard to imagine now, I know. I became volatile, temperamental. The transformation horrified my parents. Believing they had overindulged me, they became authoritarian. I thought them draconian tyrants. Selfish and immature, I fought all their attempts to discipline me. After a particularly vicious argument, so trivial I no longer remember the root of it, Memnon scolded me harshly and I resolved to run away. I was barely fifteen, completely unprepared to be out in the world alone.

“I didn’t get far. A strange delirium overcame me; strange and inexplicable because I had never been ill. Aideen found me, took me home and nursed me. After the fever broke, I was sullen, mistrustful. I accused her of poisoning and imprisoning me.” She shrugged sheepishly. “I was a bitch. My sharp tongue hit its mark many times that year, and I wounded my parents deeply during my wild moods and fits of temper. The fever returned at unpredictable intervals, slowly sapping my strength. By sixteen, I was fading. Memnon and Aideen were desperate.” She was lost in her past, her eyes unfocused.

Eric asked quietly, “What was it that ailed you?”

She focused on him. “There is no other hybrid like me for a reason. Fae and demon essences are discordant. The magicks within me were in turmoil, unbalanced. Demons do not quicken as the fae do – fae magic manifests as the body takes its adult form, during what humans call puberty – demons grow into their powers gradually, as vampires do. My fae magic was emerging fitfully, fighting the alien energy within me. But the demon essence was years strong, strong enough to defend itself. The struggle was tearing me apart.

“Aideen had a healer examine me. After he left, my mother had such grief on her face and Memnon was angry. They argued. I had never heard them argue. They truly feared for my life, and I became afraid too. No-one knew if balancing the two essences was possible, but Aideen pinned her hopes on it. She explained, through her tears, that I had one chance, a slim one at that. I had to get to the Realm. My fae magic would strengthen there and I could learn to control it, calm it so it didn’t inflame my demon side. But there was a problem.”

“The journey?”

“Ireland is littered with portals, getting to one was easy. Passing through was not.”

“Your demon blood?” Eric knew little of the relationship between the two secretive races, but he doubted the fae welcomed demons into their homeland with open arms.

“Not exactly, although that hardly weighed in my favour. Anyone whose fae blood is not too diluted can enter the Realm and survive there, but those who aren’t full fae must have permission.”

“Ah. Politics?”

“Yes. Rogan met us at the portal.”

“The prince himself.” Niall's elder brother had been a hard-nosed leader.

“Yes. Even in my weakened state I was impressed by his entourage. Fortunately, Aideen had dressed me in my finest clothes.” Sorcha smiled ruefully. “We fae are vain, we like to look our best to be insulted.”

Eric's jaw tightened. “Because you are not sky fae.”

“There was more to it, but yes, my mother’s clan was part of it. It was a tense meeting. Memnon impressed upon Rogan the consequences of turning me away to die. Hackles rose; fae do not take kindly to interference by outsiders. Memnon did not care. Fiercely protective of me and as proud as any fae, he was quite prepared to threaten Rogan for my life.”

Eric approved, thinking of Inga.

“I did not know until then, but my father was ready to give up everything he held dearest to save me. He wanted Aideen to go with me, with no guarantee that either of us would return. His devotion touched me deeply.” She sighed. “He didn’t have to face that. Rogan exiled Aideen from fae permanently.”

Eric blinked in surprise. That was a harsh judgement for a mother with a dying child, even for Rogan. “What reason did he have?”

Her face hardened. “A painful one. Rogan, with spiteful words, revealed that my mother could bear no more children for the fae. Aideen wept openly. Carrying me had left her barren.”

“Fertility was a problem, even then?” Eric asked in surprise.

“No. Rogan had political motives. And another shock for me: Aideen had been betrothed before she met Memnon, to a sky fae of the Speirling clan.”

Eric repeated, “Spayr-ling?”

“Thunderstorm. Aideen was betrothed as a child by our clan, Crannruadh, but she was rebellious and curious. She left to explore the human world. That was not so unusual; such a betrothal must be honoured by the age of fifty and wanderlust in younger fae was tolerated. Fae lifespans allow for multiple pairings, thus most marriages are practical rather than romantic, made to cement alliances or produce offspring. Aideen's was for the latter purpose. After my birth she could not fulfil it. It was something of a scandal. Crannruadh washed their hands of her.”

“Why? Fae value their kin.”

“Politics,” she said with distaste. “Not that I knew the details until much later, too late. Crannruadh stood to gain status and influence by my mother’s match, and when it failed they were indebted to Speirling. Speirling is a powerful clan, famed for its fierce warriors. Our women have a reputation for fertility and Speirling needed to replenish their numbers after the long conflict that unified the fae and brought Rogan’s father to the throne.”

“Rogan owed them.”

“Yes. Rogan could not upset his allies by allowing Aideen into fae. At the time, many fae considered it distasteful to pollute the race with lesser blood and demons were out of favour after a conflict a century earlier. Aideen choosing Memnon over one of their own was a great insult to Speirling. Carrying a demon’s child was a known risk to fertility, so it was argued that Aideen had deliberately broken the betrothal. Rogan ruled Aideen at fault and exiled her as punishment. She expected it, but Memnon convinced her to appeal to Rogan.”

“Rogan let you in?”

“Yes.” Her eyes flashed with anger. “He examined me like a prize heifer, humiliating me in front of his people. He said he could see my potential despite my tainted blood.”

Eric hissed softly.

“Rogan gave me a moment to say goodbye,” she said softly, with pain in her eyes.

Eric began to rub his thumb over her knuckles again. His touch might not soothe magically as hers did, but he hoped to comfort her regardless.

“My mother held me close, muffling her sobs. Memnon looked me in the eye and told me in demon tongue to make him proud. Then he embraced me, whispering that he would not be whole again until I returned to him.” Sorcha brushed away a tear. “I was overwhelmed. With hindsight, I was feeling Memnon's anguish as well as my own. He was devastated.”

“Your empathy?”

She nodded. “Aideen noticed I was unusually perceptive around the humans we met. Memnon spoke to me of demon abilities once I was old enough. Aware that empathy existed in his line, he began teaching me to recognise my own emotions so I would have some inkling of how to read what I sensed from others, but that was interrupted by my illness. As I was half-dae the ability developed slowly, only a subconscious intuition of what others felt until that day I felt Memnon’s heartache as my own. Once I entered the Realm my demon nature was muted, either by the place itself or the tonics I was given to fortify my fae side. My empathy did not manifest again for some years.”

Eric narrowed his eyes. “You were blind in enemy territory.”

She smiled half-heartedly. “Enemy to you, but not to me. Not then. They were family, family I was curious to meet. Rogan handed me over to my uncle, Aideen’s younger brother. Fearghal took me to the home he shared with his wife Erin and their twin daughters. Despite the tonic he gave me, my fever returned with a vengeance. Erin guessed that the loss of my parents had triggered it and that close contact with my blood kin would help. She laid my infant cousins beside me and the fever receded.”

“Did they welcome your presence?”

Sorcha opened her mouth and then hesitated. She looked down at their entwined hands. “I thought so. Erin was quiet and kept herself to herself, but I adored my little cousins, Una and Cara. Fearghal was charming and kind. With his red hair and freckles, he reminded me of my mother.”

“You missed her. You were unhappy.”

She gave him a crooked smile and shook her head. “Oh no, I was happy. I was young and resilient, and it is not my nature to grieve over-long. Besides, my relationship with my parents had been so fraught that I appreciated Fearghal’s peaceful household. I was content with my new-found family.”

Eric thought of Inga again. “You didn’t miss Memnon?”

“My cousins loved me unconditionally, and I them.” She stroked his hand, giving him a buzz of her energy. “You feel that? To be close to kin is somewhat addicting to fae.”

“I see.”

“Once I recovered my strength, Fearghal began teaching me to control my fae magic.” She smiled. “We share the same quick temper. I wasn’t an easy pupil and he was impatient with me until he discovered I had a rare talent – healing, like my mother. Fearghal was pleased. And so was Aideen.”

“You saw her?”

“No. We wrote, relying on the kindness of fae passing between the realms to courier our precious letters. Precious as they were few and soon ended.” Seeing his eyebrow twitch, she elaborated. “My mother’s letters stopped when I was eighteen. When I pestered Fearghal for news of her, he was evasive. I thought he was protecting me.”

“From what?”

Her green eyes filled with tears. “From what I feared most: that I was forgotten, abandoned. Oh, I know,” she waved his disbelief aside, “it was a ridiculous childish fear. But I was sure Aideen was happy without me. I had spoken many cruel words to her, words that seemed unforgivable once I knew what she lost in birthing me.”

“That was not your fault.”

“No, but I was still a child at heart and I felt it was. That guilt made it easy to believe Aideen had deliberately broken off contact. Fearghal suggested that my parents had cut me loose to make a new life for myself, knowing I was where I belonged, with _my people_.”

Eric narrowed his eyes at her bitter sarcasm. “Your uncle misled you.”

“Yes. Aideen’s letters were returned and she was told I had refused them. Believable given the angry spiteful creature I had become, but she didn’t accept it. She tried to get word to me, but few were willing to go against Rogan to aid an exile.”

“Did you believe she and Memnon had abandoned you?”

“Almost completely,” she said forlornly. “My father’s parting words lay nestled in my heart, but my mind believed Fearghal’s deceit. My uncle began to initiate me in the ways of the fae. He blamed my free thinking and rebellious nature on Memnon’s influence, a demon corruption to be removed. He drummed fae culture, history and endless rules about duty and honour into me. I threw myself into my lessons, soaking them up. It made me feel closer to my mother, and I needed that, believing that she had turned her face from me.”

She stopped and Eric felt her grip on his hand loosen. She was lost in memories, dark ones he sensed. He tugged on her hand. “What was the Realm like?”

“Describing it would be futile. How could I properly explain the sheer beauty and magnificence of the Realm in words?” She rolled her eyes mockingly. Sobering she admitted, “I saw little of the Realm beyond my uncle’s farm at first. I wasn’t deemed ready for fae society. That took two years of Fearghal’s shaping, of me allowing my true self to sink under the weight of his indoctrination. At twenty, I was finally allowed to attend a coming of age celebration.”

“Your own?”

“No, a distant cousin of Erin’s. I didn’t know other fae my age. My uncle’s farm was isolated up in the mountains, which were lovely by the way, but made me yearn for Ireland. Only a few close relatives visited, occasionally the clan chief, Devin. I found my elders intimidating and excused myself to watch over Una and Cara during their visits. I sensed the weight of their disapproval, I think.”

“In four years you didn’t meet anyone else?”

“Occasionally I went with my aunt to a market at the nearest settlement, down in the lowlands. Erin cautioned me to stay aloof and dignified. I was stared at, but I was used to that from Kerry. Strangers attract curious stares.”

“But there was more to it,” he guessed.

“Yes. The _crossbreed_ – that is how I was known, amongst other less flattering names – had a fearsome reputation. I was an abomination, a freak to be feared. Not that I knew. Fearghal saw to it I was sheltered in the bosom of my loving family.”

Eric snorted derisively. Loving family, his pale dead ass. That uncle of hers had isolated her, brainwashed her. “Fearghal did not do that out of kindness,” he said coldly.

“You are right. That household kept me blanketed in love, but also in ignorance. I was like a lamb to the slaughter.”

“What happened?”

“The celebration was a turning point. Erin made me a beautiful gown and spoke of attracting male attention. I was thrilled. The feasting and music was wonderful, laughter and joy all around me. Following Erin’s advice I ignored the curious looks and made stilted conversation, watching enviously as the other young fae paired off to dance. None of the young males would meet my eyes, let alone dance with me. I gave up waiting for my turn and wandered to a table laden with food. Then I saw him.

“He was beautiful, and I was not yet immune to the beauty of the fae. Tall, fair skinned, long black hair that brushed his broad shoulders … When he turned, scowling forbiddingly, his dark eyes pierced mine. He was older, much older than the youngsters too scared to approach me, and – oh, how my youthful heart jolted at the tragedy – the left side of his face was badly scarred.”

“I smiled shyly. He looked away, but our eyes met again. I wove a romantic past for my wounded hero. Oh yes, _mine_. Before we even spoke.” Her mouth twisted in distaste. “He approached, with a drink. Nervous, I stammered answers to his polite questions as I drank it. He took my hand and led me to dance. Stiff and proud, he ignored the whispers that followed us with dignity. I was smitten.”

Pain and anger coloured her words, at odds with the scene she was painting. Eric had only one explanation for that. He said quietly, “You loved him.”

“I cannot answer that,” she said bitterly.

“Who was he?”

Her face pinched with anger. “A liar who stole my dreams. A brute who destroyed my spirit. Treasach.”

“Trah-sack,” Eric echoed, dredging the meaning from memories of the Irish. “Fierce fighter. What happened between you?”

“Too much. After the dance, he came to me at the farm. He was attentive but reserved. I saw what I wanted: a brave damaged man of honour who chose me, the crossbreed, to heal his heart. He saw past my blood as I saw past his scars, so I thought. We shared a few stolen kisses. I was ecstatic, felt myself urgently in love. After three such visits, he spoke to my uncle about marriage.”

Eric stiffened. “Not your father?”

She scoffed. “Ask Memnon, a demon, for permission? Not likely. My uncle was responsible for me in fae. I did not question that, because I had my heart set on Treasach and nothing would sway me. Certainly not my father, who I knew would object. He had married for duty. I was free to do what he could not: marry for love, love like my parents had.”

“You did love him.”

She shook her head. “I was a fool. As the humans say: marry in haste, repent at leisure. We were married before I turned twenty-one, ridiculously young for the fae.”

Eric blinked. “Fearghal allowed it.”

“Yes, he was pleased. Erin was not, though she hid it. I thought Treasach’s age made her uneasy; he was over five hundred. Or she disapproved because her mother was water fae and Treasach was sky.”

At that titbit, Eric’s thumb faltered in its soothing circle. Sky fae: he’d bet his fangs on which clan.

“We settled in the mountains. Not on Treasach's own land, with his clan on the distant plains. I didn’t question it. I was grateful to be near my kin, not thrust amongst strangers. The wedding ceremony was small. None of his kin came, and I didn’t question that either. I was relieved, wary of their disapproval. If the marriage bed was not quite what I expected, I had nothing to complain about but a vague sense of disappointment. Treasach was … careful taking my maidenhead. But he did not, to use the vernacular, rock my world.”

Eric scoffed.

Her eyes twinkled. “Yes, not your philosophy.”

“Not usually, no,” he said grimly, thinking of Freyda. Treasach had treated Sorcha the same way, not caring to pleasure the tender-hearted wife who thought herself in love with him. Eric did not like the implications.

She gave Eric a curious look, and then comprehension dawned. “Freyda?”

He pulled a face and nodded.

“Good, I’d hate to think you wasted your talents on her. Marriage can be hell, can’t it?” She squeezed his hand and sighed. “At first marriage confused me. We didn’t spend as much time together as I expected; he had business in his own lands that he said didn’t concern me. Treasach was distant, but we made love regularly, and it was reasonably pleasant. I assumed his detachment sprang from his stern personality and all was well.”

“But it wasn’t,” Eric said softly.

“No. It wasn’t. A season later he seemed indifferent to me. I was heartbroken. I tried to please him, but at my clumsy attempts he withdrew, became colder. I sensed he was angry with me and saw it in his gestures, his looks, though he tried to hide it. What had I done wrong? I didn’t know.

“Fearghal discouraged me from visiting the farm, wanting me to turn to my husband for comfort. Erin brought my cousins to see me occasionally, but I kept my troubles to myself, fearing her censure. Miserable and lonely, I begged Treasach to take me on his trips. He refused. I began to suspect he was ashamed of me. The isolation was suffocating. Inevitably I lost my temper one day as Treasach was leaving and … I would say we fought, but actually I hurled a barrage of complaints and he stormed out, shouting that no wife would speak to him as I had.

“I had had enough. With nowhere else to go, I set off across the mountains towards my uncle’s house, walking to clear my head. Relief filled me when I crested the last hill and saw the twins playing in the orchard below. I had missed them. I hurried down towards the blossoming trees and their laughter. As I passed the house I halted abruptly, startled to hear my name and raised voices from my uncle’s study.” Her grip on Eric’s hand tightened. “Burning with curiosity, I crouched beneath the open window. I was stunned by what I heard.”

Eric said grimly, “Treasach was Speirling.”

“Yes, a coincidence I never questioned. I should have. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I married Aude in my brother’s place, remember.”

“Oh. Of course. You are familiar with such traditions.”

“What did you overhear?”

“My husband was complaining acrimoniously that I was not yet with child. My uncle replied sharply that he had given no guarantee of that due to my demon blood. Treasach hissed out that he expected at least one child for the dowry he’d paid. Fearghal retorted icily that Treasach would be hard pressed to find another halfling bride let alone a full fae one.”

Eric wasn’t shocked to have his suspicions confirmed, but he was startled by the strength of his anger. His voice was harsh with it. “Your uncle manipulated you from the start. He betrayed you, his own kin, for the dowry.”

Sorcha leant back against the couch, pensive. “Yes … but Fearghal had reason for what he did.”

“He sold you without your knowledge. You forgive him this?” he asked incredulously.

“No. But I see things that were once obscured clearly. Fearghal was young, barely fifty, as was Erin. Of low-rank, they had to obey the clan. Even after all his instruction, Fearghal doubted I would accept an arranged marriage to atone for my mother’s sins. I was not pragmatic like you, I was a romantic. How could I be otherwise, growing up with parents who defied their kin for love? Fearghal had no choice but to lie.”

Eric‘s lip curled and he growled.

Sorcha ignored it. “Not that I understood that when I confronted Treasach and my uncle. I burst in on them boiling with rage. Steam wasn’t pouring from my ears, but my hands were smoking. Only the muting of my demon essence prevented me setting the house on fire. The shock on their faces!”

Her chuckle turned into a grimace. “Then there was a lot of angry yelling. It was Erin, quiet, reticent Erin, who stopped our harsh words turning into blows. In she came, blustering like a spring storm, and tossed Treasach out of _her_ house. She was unstoppable when her children’s peace was threatened.”

“Did your uncle tell you the truth then?”

“No, he said I was too _upset_ to hear it. I stayed that night and wept long over Treasach, my heart broken. Little did I know I had years of weeping to come,” she said dryly.

“The next day Erin, who was a skilled weaver, asked me to help her in her workshop. It was there, the peaceful rhythm of her loom never ceasing, that I learnt how Treasach and Fearghal came to an _arrangement_.”

“Some six years before I entered fae, Devin had offered Speirling another female in place of my mother, hoping their anger had cooled. The male my mother had been promised to had already taken a bride, a water fae, but Speirling had other males in need of a wife. Speirling refused our female haughtily – she made a match with another clan, I think – and our clan remained indebted. When I arrived, Devin, short of available females, approached Speirling again only to be rebuffed with much scorn for daring to offer me. Erin hesitated to say why, but I guessed that the _crossbreed_ was beneath them.”

“Fools. What changed?”

“I’m not sure. Speirling’s change of heart came around the time my healing talent, a valuable trait to add to their bloodline, showed itself. Erin thought that was why Speirling unbent their dented pride and approached Devin, suggesting a match with Treasach. He had lost his last living descendant, a son, a decade earlier and needed an heir. Erin told me all this calmly, but when I asked if Treasach really had difficulty finding a mate, if his disfigurement was to blame, she became evasive.”

Eric muttered, “Fucking fairies.”

“Yes. Truth is a fluid thing to the fae,” Sorcha agreed wearily. “Erin told me what she could that day, but it wasn’t everything. She and Fearghal had convinced Devin that I would balk at a stranger. So Devin had insisted that Treasach meet me before the match was agreed. When I was eager to marry him with no prompting, Erin was greatly relieved. She apologised for keeping it from me, but I hushed her. I could hardly blame her. I had been willing, determined even, to tie myself to Treasach.”

“Your aunt and uncle should have explained.”

“Perhaps, but Erin knew enough of my romantic daydreams to fear I might oppose an arranged marriage on principle, even if I did love Treasach. She urged me to forgive him, make the best of it for the short time we would be tied together.” She tilted her head. “Hm. It occurs to me now that that was advice from her own experience.”

“A short time?”

“My ‘sentence’ was to last twelve years. I discovered that when Treasach arrived with Devin a day later.”

“To persuade you to go back.”

“Yes. I was furious with Treasach, but my heart leapt when I saw him. His meagre, barely contrite apology rang hollow after the hurtful words I’d overheard from him. Yet I still yearned for him, which left me confused and heart-sore.

“Fearghal and Devin took me into the study to browbeat me into doing my duty for the clan. The conversation was not pleasant. First, Devin berated me, making it clear no-one else would want to marry the _crossbreed_ , with the shame my blood carried.

A growl rumbled in Eric’s chest again. He was starting to hate that word: crossbreed.

“His words didn’t cow me. I demanded to know what terms they had agreed: twelve years of marriage, long enough for a child if that was possible. I asked what had been paid to my uncle for his co-operation. Fearghal flushed in shame, but Devin answered bluntly. It was a reasonable amount, which weighed heavily on me. On one hand, Fearghal had not given me away cheaply. On the other, Treasach had paid well for the crossbreed no-one wanted. I was troubled at that. Perhaps I was the only bride he could find. Was my beloved husband so undesirable, so cruelly rejected for his scars? I could hardly believe it.

“Devin spoke of my mother’s disgrace, how my marriage set that right, paid her debt. Naturally, that burden should fall on Aideen’s closest kin, and if I refused it, gave further insult to Speirling – there Devin shot Fearghal a sly look – Treasach would demand another wife, one of purer blood. Fearghal blanched and I realised, shocked, that Devin meant Una or Cara would take my place. I was dismayed that Treasach might prefer one of my cousins.”

Eric said shrewdly, “You were jealous.”

“Yes. After all the waves of anger, disbelief, longing and hurt, it was that jealousy that sank me. I asked for a day to consider and fled to the orchard, weeping. Erin came to find me at dusk. She had been crying too and I saw fear for her daughters in her eyes. I went in to eat. I sat between my cousins, sweet gentle Una and lively giggling Cara. I imagined them married to my stern taciturn husband … It was impossible. If I could hardly bear a loveless marriage, how could I ask it of them? I couldn’t do that to them. I loved them dearly.”

“It was clever of Devin to threaten them.” Too clever, Eric thought. Fearghal had told Devin too much, given him leverage over all of them.

“Yes. The next day I accepted Treasach’s apology and returned to our home.” Sorcha’s tone became flat. “I did my duty and saw out my term, giving birth to a daughter after five years. The marriage ended acrimoniously. The girl was sky fae and remained with Treasach. This much have I shared with Memnon and Aideen, with lovers. But I have never spoken of what it cost me.”

Eric reached over with his free hand and caressed her cheek gently. “Tell me. All of it.”

She did, spewing out the poison of those years, what happened in private.

Despite her attempts to be a good wife, to win Treasach over, he was increasingly resentful as the months went by with no pregnancy. She longed for his affection, still adored him in the face of his coldness.

It began with verbal abuse. She wept the first time he called her crossbreed. Not in front of him though, alone hours after the insult. Then he was a little too rough when he bedded her. Then his anger at the situation erupted and he struck her.

Eric shoved his anger down and kept himself calm, stoking her palm, never letting go of her hand.

She was devastated by the blow and its aftermath: her crippling fear of Treasach. If she tried to refuse his advances, he reminded her coldly that it was her duty to provide him with an heir, the threat of violence hanging in the air. He was older, a warrior, stronger than her physically and magically. She had no choice but to comply.

Eventually he gave up the pretence of threatening her and used brute force, pushing her face into the pillows, bruising her wrists as he held her down… He was pitiless in bed and out of it, losing his temper and striking her often.

Then one of his blows caused a miscarriage. She hadn’t realised she was pregnant – fae could sense a child once it took root, but this was her first and she was not full fae. Treasach was furious, blaming her foul blood, accusing her of hiding it, provoking him with her stubbornness.

Eric broke in then, voice hot with the fury burning in his blood. “Does this piece of shit still live?”

Sorcha swallowed the lump in her throat. “No. Memnon took care of that.”

He snarled, “Good. Was it slow?”

“Swift. It was enough that he was gone.”

A tear split on her cheek. Eric brushed it away quickly with his free hand. His gesture broke the dam and she let out a sob. He pulled her against him and wrapped her in his arms, rocking her as she wept, relieved he couldn’t see her tears. It wasn’t their lack of scent that disturbed him.

Once she calmed, he stroked her back and asked gently, “How long did this go on?”

“Until the end of the marriage,” she whispered sadly. She pulled back and stroked the side of his face. “Far fewer years than you survived with Ocella.”

“One year is too long, Sorcha.” He took her hand from his cheek and brushed his lips with her fingertips.

“You survived much worse.”

“You were young, lacking experience. I was not. I had seen battle, death, suffered loss. I already knew cruelty. You did not. You were innocent, sheltered.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, wiping her face with her hands. “I did get a respite thanks to Erin. She suspected something, not that Treasach encouraged us to meet. After my loss, she came to comfort me and caught sight of my bruises. She was distraught. She said Treasach had a reputation for ill-using women, but she’d hoped that–”

“They knew!” Eric exploded, fangs snapping down. “Fearghal knew what Treasach was before you married him.”

She winced at his tone. “Only rumours. Enough for him to be concerned. He was protecting Una and Cara. Erin and Fearghal may not have loved each other, but they loved their daughters fiercely. Do not judge them so harshly.”

Eric snarled and opened his mouth to protest.

“Hush,” Sorcha said, laying her hand on gently his cheek and looking deep into his eyes. “Would you not have done the same for Inga?”

His jaw clenching, he insisted forcefully, “I would have found another way.”

“And if you had niece of age, who you believed was in love and willing? If your Jarl ordered it?”

He glared at her. Then his shoulders slumped. He muttered, “I would have warned you.”

“I would have been deaf to your words.” Sorcha stroked his face. “I don’t blame Fearghal. I chose to protect his daughters too, when I returned to Treasach. He and Erin never knew the depths of Treasach’s depravity. I never told Erin he was violating me.”

“Erin saw your bruises.”

“And she intervened when she could. Four years into our marriage, I was with child again. Erin confronted Treasach, saying if he wanted the child to live, I had to stay with her until the birth. Fae women expel pregnancies spontaneously if they are … unhappy, so he saw the wisdom in her words.”

“Wisdom,” Eric scoffed softly. “He had none. He wanted a child but he beat you.”

“He was a contradiction, ruled by his temper. Erin was right, I blossomed away from him. We told Una and Cara that Treasach was called away by his clan. My cousins were almost grown and doted on me as my belly swelled. Treasach visited, but Erin stayed within earshot and I was safe.”

“And when the child was born?”

Sorcha’s face lit up. “Fionna was beautiful. Treasach came to see her and I was relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“He loved her the moment he saw her. I worried that he might hanker for a son.”

“Not that he wouldn’t accept a child with demon blood?”

“No. Thankfully our daughter has only a little of Memnon’s blood, too little to matter even to the fae. I knew Treasach wouldn’t care. I never thought him heartless, despite what he did to me.”

Eric held his tongue, but she felt his doubts and tried to explain. “Treasach was too proud to be trapped with a wife he came to loathe. The frustration brought his sadistic nature to the fore with me, but with Fionna I saw with my own eyes that he was capable of deep abiding love.”

Envy flashed in her eyes, but Eric didn’t comment.

“Fionna inspired devotion. She was striking, even amongst fae, with Treasach’s black hair and my green eyes. Once she was weaned I had to go back to Treasach, but things were easier. I was content with Fionna.”

“He didn’t stop.”

“No. It happened less frequently. He wanted another child, but nothing came of it. Our dynamic was comfortingly like my own childhood: a father often away, a mother and daughter in the mountains. When Treasach was absent, I could pretend all was well. My situation was much improved; Fionna gave me reason to socialise, to visit my aunt and the settlement for her sake. I was less lonely. I even found I could bear the whispers of Treasach’s affairs that began to reach me.”

Eric was puzzled; a second earlier she seemed to envy her daughter. “You weren’t jealous?”

Sorcha shrugged. “It stung, but mostly I was grateful it diverted his attention from me. Relieved as you were with Alexei.”

“Ah. I understand.”

“I came to accept that for him it had always been an arranged marriage. Naturally one strays in that situation. It was not frowned upon.”

“Yes, that was the case when I was human.”

Sorcha raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

Eric shrugged. “It was expected of men.”

“Aude accepted this?”

“Aude was a practical woman. Ours was not a love match, never had been. We had an unspoken understanding. As long as no child came of it and it was discreet, neither of us cared over-much about fidelity.”

“Us?” Sorcha’s eyes were wide. “She took lovers?”

He chuckled. “I was at sea for months. I could hardly fault her for … relieving the monotony, shall we say, much less stop her. I turned a blind eye and so did she. She was always waiting on the shore.”

“What if she had fallen in love?”

He blinked. “That never occurred to me. Our lives were hard and love was a luxury we did not seek.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t think she did. Maybe if she had lived longer...”

“What about you?”

“I took pleasure where I found it. Nothing serious. I was careful, out of respect for Aude. I would not dishonour my wife by shitting in my own hearth.”

She scrunched up her nose. “Humans have the most bizarre sayings.”

Eric was pleased to see her mood lighten and he smirked. “My people had sagas about farting competitions.”

“Really?”

“What can I say? Our winters were long.”

“Very long,” Sorcha teased. Then her face fell. “It was winter when I lost Fionna.”

Eric knew she needed to get it all out and squeezed her hand. “Go on.”

“I had a few months’ grace after the marriage officially ended. He came for her on her seventh birthday, and took her to his kin, to his lands where I wasn’t welcome. I feared that from the day of her birth, because she was sky fae.”

“It follows the father?”

“No. It is what you are. It can follow either parent or rarely neither, a throwback to a distant ancestor.”

“Then who raises the child?”

“Usually the mother until the child is grown. Treasach wanted Fionna with him and when I refused he appealed to Rogan, who naturally sided with Treasach and ruled Fionna was better off with him. I fell into a deep despair after he took Fifi.”

“Did you go home?”

“Home?”

“To your parents.”

“I had been away from them over half my life by then; I had no home. I chose to stay for Fionna. I was allowed to see her twice a year, if only for her sake. Each parting was acid in the wound. We became increasingly estranged. Worse, she developed her father’s haughty demeanour. I knew he had succeeded in poisoning her against me the first time she called me crossbreed.”

Eric muttered something in Norse.

“I persisted with our meetings. At sixteen she refused to see me. We met rarely over the next five years; each time she treated me as a stranger. She married a prominent sky fae at twenty-four, far too young. My worst fear. Treasach arranged it and I was powerless to stop it. Forced to admit she was lost to me, I returned to Earth.”

“Have you met since?”

She nodded. “Centuries later. It was like walking on broken glass. She is her father’s daughter. My Fifi, my sweet playful Fifi, was erased long ago. Only Fionna, proud and cruel, lives on. Speirling pushed for her to marry young, like me. But she was proud to serve as their brood-mare. She bore them twins, strong warriors to replace Treasach’s sons.”

She fell silent. Eric let her be, digesting her story. It explained much: her unease with the fae, her dislike of the Brigants. But something did not sit right.

“Fearghal … his teaching, the isolation, everything was to prepare you for a possible marriage.”

“Yes.”

“Treasach could not find another bride, so he agreed to take you. He was part of the deceit, and he seduced you. Knowingly.”

“Yes. For a race that cannot lie directly, the fae excel at deception and I was easy prey. Lonely, out of place, I was ripe for the picking.”

Sorcha had talked of adoring Treasach, _believing_ herself in love but … “Did you love him?”

“My feelings lasted six years of his brutality, before they began to wear thin. What else could that be but blind stupid love? Or so I thought.”

“It wasn’t?”

She grimaced. “After Fifi left, Fearghal gave me a share of my dowry and I–”

Eric muttered, “Guilt money.”

“Perhaps. I travelled, searching for a place to wait out the long months between Fifi’s visits. I found one deep in the forest, at a house with a wonderful herb garden. Brid was a healer, an ancient fae who had tired of her clan and family. She took me in. Between Brid’s quiet presence and the solitude of the forest, I kept my sanity when Fionna began to drift away from me. After she refused to see me, I took to ranging far into the trees. One day I found a white flower I didn’t recognise, except for its scent. You remember Treasach handed me a drink when first we met?”

“Yes.”

“Our meeting was etched in my memory; I had retraced it fondly many times before…” She gestured vaguely to indicate the hell her marriage became. “The flower smelt like that drink. Uneasy, I described the plant to Brid and asked if it was used to flavour wine. She sat down hard, shakily revealing it was used to make a powerful love potion. I finally understood _everything_. Why I fell for him so fast, why it didn’t stop.”

Eric’s fangs dropped and he hissed softly. “When I spoke of Ocella, you implied your feelings had been twisted against you. This is what you meant?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Still stiff with anger, he asked, “Did your uncle know?”

“I don’t think so. Brid told me it was outlawed. Treasach would not have risked telling Fearghal.” Sorcha frowned. “What is it Eric?”

He was thinking furiously. He tensed and slowly raised his eyes to hers, thumb circling on her hand again. “Devin. Fearghal told him too much. Your affection for your cousins, what you were like, that you might resist the marriage … Devin told Treasach you had to fall in love.”

She swore softly in fae. “You’re right. Devin would have done anything to secure the marriage.”

“Does _he_ live?” Eric asked, his eyes glittering.

“No.”

“Pity.”

“Thank you for offering.” She clasped his hand in both of hers. “You see why I hated hearing what Ocella did to you with his blood. I only suffered such treachery for a few years and that was damaging enough.”

“Yes. I see.”

They sat in silence for a while, still holding hands.

Eric asked, “When did you see Memnon again?”

“Not long after Fionna married. It was not an easy homecoming. I had been gone too long. My parents longed for their child to return, but they got a guilty, disenchanted woman.”

“Guilty?”

“For staying in fae so long for Fionna to no good end, while Aideen and Memnon waited thirty-four long years for me.” She sighed heavily. “I couldn’t be who they wanted. I couldn’t stay with them at first, and that broke my mother’s heart. We reconciled fully about twenty years before … Her death was too much to bear after so much trauma.”

“But you had Memnon.”

“Yes, that helped greatly. But I did not fully recover from my time in fae until I had been in the demon realm for about sixty years. I married again.” She felt Eric’s surprise and smiled. “Nestor was an ancient demon. Calm, controlled, he was the perfect mentor for me with my empathy. His gentleness was the balm I needed. Our fifty year marriage was one of friendship and companionship rather than passion, but it healed me. We parted as friends.”

“Did you have children?”

“One. A girl who arrived unexpectedly after we had been together thirty years. We named her Aisling, our dream. Whether it was Nestor’s age or she had too much of the fae about her to survive in Dae, she was sickly and died in infancy.”

He let her feel his sympathy. Thinking of Aideen’s fate, he asked cautiously, “Can you still...?”

“I am half-dae. It seems I can bear their children without harm.”

He nodded. “I see why you were uneasy around full fae when you returned to this realm.”

“Yes. I didn’t trust them, especially the males.”

“Didn’t?”

She smiled. “That is another story, a nicer fairy-tale.” She gestured at the sky. “We will be out of time soon, I think.”

He nodded. Dawn was coming. He looked down at their hands. “This connection between us…”

“It’s perplexing you.”

“A little.”

She nodded. “Me too. Although … we were both betrayed by those we thought of as family.”

“We’ve both been forced to marry,” he said slowly.

“We’ve both been manipulated magically to hold affection for those who …”

“Raped us,” Eric said softly. “You can say it.”

“You survived much more.”

“I have had much longer to recover.”

She looked at him with admiration. “It has made you stronger, strong enough to survive Nadia’s torture.”

He shrugged. “So, this connection … You think it is just the similarities of our experiences?”

“Perhaps. I’m not sure.”

They looked at each other for a long moment in the flickering light from the guttering candles. Eric let go of her hand. “I should go.” He slipped his shoes back on and stood, glancing at the sky. “I have to find somewhere for the day.”

Sorcha said solemnly, “You can stay.”

He frowned. “Bury myself on your land?”

“No. You can stay. Come see,” she said, standing and tugging on his hand. She led him upstairs, to a bedroom with a large comfortable bed and a thick shutter over the window. He stood on the threshold, blinking.

“For me?”

“You are welcome in my home, Eric Northman.” She gave him a wry smile. “The room is warded against all fae but me, and if you don’t trust my word there is a steel coffin under the bed.”

Eric didn’t know what to say. He bowed deeply. “You are very generous.”

She could feel he wanted to thank her. Her smile broadened. He growled quietly at her and startled her by pulling her into a sudden embrace.

She hugged him back tightly, whispering a thank you.

His chest rumbled with laughter. “Woman, stop teasing me with words I cannot return.”

She chuckled, and pulled back to stroke his face tenderly. “Rest well, Eric.”

He kissed her softly on the forehead. “Sleep well, Sorcha.”

He stepped into the room and closed the door. Sorcha laid her hand gently on it in a tender gesture before she left for her own bed.

…

They would both sleep the day away, exhausted.

At sunset, he would be pleased that she had bagged blood in the house for him, but he would hide that with a joke about expecting fae blood next time.

After he left, she would shake her head at the wet towel on the bathroom floor, reminded of another untidy man, but she would be inordinately pleased to find the coffin unused and the bed messed.

He trusted her and she trusted him.

...

* * *

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved" - _George MacDonald_

* * *

...


End file.
